Paula and the Pontiacs perform at a benefit to help reopen Jimmy’s Music Club on April 4, 2013. (Robert Morris, UptownMessenger.com)
Just when New Orleans officials and the owners of Jimmy’s Music Club were beginning to find some common ground, the city’s independent alcohol board on Tuesday afternoon surprised both of them by rejecting Jimmy’s appeal, essentially offering the club two routes: City Council or the courts. Continue reading »
Amid rumors, protests and petitions, a Lower Garden District neighborhood group is asking city recreation officials to hold a public meeting explaining changes for a facility at Annunciation Park.
Meanwhile on Monday night, the association also heard from a resident seeking to open a new coffee shop on Jackson Avenue, met one of the first candidates to begin campaigning openly for the at-large seat that will be open in next year’s New Orleans City Council elections and discussed the problem of loitering at a Magazine Street corner store. Continue reading »
Purple areas show those that a ladder truck can reach within the national standard of eight minutes under a New Orleans Fire Department redeployment plan set to take place this summer. (Robert Morris, UptownMessenger.com)
Despite official assurances that the removal of a ladder-equipped fire truck from the station on Arabella is part of the best possible future for the New Orleans Fire Department, Uptown residents who live nearby continue to worry that their level of fire protection is being reduced. Continue reading »
(map via NOPD)
The former Louisiana Seafood at 2900 LaSalle. (Robert Morris, UptownMessenger.com)
Cowbell chef Brack May
Stan Norwood (center) speaks as Neighbors United president Andrew Amacker (standing) takes ideas for reducing crime in the Freret neighborhood Tuesday night. (Robert Morris, UptownMessenger.com)
Amid an ongoing discussion of ways to permanently reduce crime in the Freret neighborhood, residents are hoping for a $6,000 grant to create a network of 12 ProjectNOLA surveillance cameras near hotspots for drug dealing and gunplay. Continue reading »
Wilbert Wilson (center) cuts hair in front of at Mr. Chill’s First Class Cuts on South Carrollton on Aug. 31, 2012, following Hurricane Isaac. His setup with a generator-powered fan and clippers is similar to what he used in a gas station parking lot after Hurricane Katrina. (Robert Morris, UptownMessenger.com)
The shop at the corner of General Pershing and South Derbigny streets where Mr. Chill’s Broadmoor Dogs and Sweet Pastries will open next month. (Robert Morris, UptownMessenger.com)
(map via NOPD)
Bricolage Academy, the new Orleans Parish Charter School that will open this fall on the campus of Touro Synagogue, has been awarded a $1 million New Schools for New Orleans grant from the $30 million NOLA Charter Excellence Fund, designed to create 15,000 high-quality public-school seats in the city. Continue reading »
Kara Morgan (right) and her sister, Kristine Rizzuto, at Morgan’s home in the Irish Channel. (Robert Morris, UptownMessenger.com)
For years, Kara Morgan has given her neighbors her time, love and energy as the tough, cheerful leader of the Irish Channel Neighborhood Association.
Now that the 39-year-old mother of two has been diagnosed with a deadly form of cancer, the Irish Channel is giving back to Morgan this weekend in the neighborhood’s own irreverent way — with a fundraiser for her medical treatment at a brewery, complete with burlesque dancers, musicians, and all the fierce, unyielding optimism that she and her community bear so proudly. Continue reading »
State Rep. Neil Abramson, left, speaks during a public meeting about the expansion of Children’s Hospital onto the former New Orleans Adolescent Hospital property. (Robert Morris, UptownMessenger.com)
State law requires that the former New Orleans Adolescent Hospital site only be used for health-care purposes after Children’s Hospital buys it, lawmakers said at a public meeting Monday night. Meanwhile, the expansion of mental-health services at the former DePaul Hospital site on Calhoun street will no new construction, hospital officials said. Continue reading »
Computer sketch (via NOPD)
The honest taxi drivers of New Orleans should turn in one of their peers who sexually assaulted a woman he was driving through the east Carrollton area early Thursday, so that their profession’s reputation does not suffer from his misdeeds, NOPD Superintendent Ronal Serpas said Friday afternoon.
“Cab drivers are good, professional, hardworking people,” Serpas said at a mid-afternoon news conference. “You know who this guy is. You know who he is. Tell him to turn himself in; we’re coming to get him.” Continue reading »
Computer sketch (via NOPD)
Children’s Hospital officials and the lawmakers who brokered a compromise regarding their expansion to the adjacent New Orleans Adolescent Hospital will hold a neighborhood meeting next week to discuss additional mental-health services that are planned. Continue reading »
Crowds gather around the Ace Hardware on Oak Street in late March in preparation for the Pigeontown Steppers second line. A banner announcing the store’s impending closure hangs above the store. (UptownMessenger.com file photo)
Jean-Paul Villere
Without fuss or fanfare the Oak St Ace Hardware depleted its remaining inventory over April and closed its doors permanently. Forever. Gone. Kaput. No mas. The corner fixture that united neighbors and brought inexpensive solutions to the 21st century world of buying in bulk, automated key duplicating machines, and the like became another memory, the end result of a society that more often chooses convenience over customer service and cost over care. I, for one, was a fan and truly shopped there as often as I could, and I am more than a little sad if only because I can see the future. Effectively our consuming buying patterns and the all too nearby Lowe’s spelled the demise for this little gem. Continue reading »
City Councilwoman LaToya Cantrell delivers her “State of District B” address Tuesday night at City Hall. (Robert Morris, UptownMessenger.com)
City Councilwoman LaToya Cantrell laid out a holistic vision for stronger neighborhoods with more opportunities for young people and healthier residents with better jobs, but said she will need the support of her entire district to bring it to reality.
“I wanted to truly bring our district together, much how we did in Broadmoor. We subdivided to figure out our needs, but we came together as a neighborhood,” Cantrell said. “Tonight, I want us to come together as a district. With your help, we can truly build a District B that we can believe in.” Continue reading »
City Councilwoman LaToya Cantrell speaks to the Bouligny Improvement Association in February. (UptownMessenger.com file photo by Robert Morris)
A member of the St. Augustine Marching 100 plays in the Battle of the Bands for the Instruments A-Comin’ benefit at Tipitina’s in April 2012. (UptownMessenger.com file photo by Robert Morris)
Demetrius Williams (via opcso.org)
Shantell Payton (far right) is all smiles at the announcement that Xavier Prep will live on as Drexel Prep next year, Darria Thomas, president of the Xavier Prep Alumni Association, and four current sophomores. (photo by jewel bush for UptownMessenger.com)
jewel bush
Back in February, a sense of grief swept the entire New Orleans community when the Sisters of Blessed Sacrament, a Pennsylvania-based order, announced it would close the all-girls Xavier University Preparatory High School at the end of the school year due to uncertain financial sustainability. As many prepared to mourn the death of Prep as yet another failed black institution, the school’s alumni base wasn’t quite ready to deliver the eulogy. They couldn’t bear to see St. Katharine Drexel’s dream wither. They fought, fundraised and incorporated to preserve the school.
Attorney Shantell Payton, class of 1997, is the youngest Prepper among the coterie of six alumni who bought the school, along with Federal Judge Karen Wells Roby, Clerk of Court Dale Atkins, Judge Piper Griffin, attorney Keith Doley and Judge Edwin Lombard (including male alumni, a nod to the days when the school was co-ed). Payton’s allegiance and love for Prep is boundless. She chose to attend Prep over Benjamin Franklin High School, the number one ranked school in the state of Louisiana, reluctantly following in her sister’s footsteps. Continue reading »