Dew Drop Inn aims to present the past, present and future of New Orleans music

The Dew Drop Inn Hotel & Lounge, after a 54-year pause, is hosting live music once again. The legendary Central City nightclub reopened Friday (March 1) with performances that paid homage to its storied history. The Dew Drop on the LaSalle Street was the city’s leading Black music venue during rock ‘n’ roll’s formative years. It brought top national entertainers  — Ray Charles, James Brown, Little Richard, Ike and Tina Turner, to name a few — into town, and it had a house band that could outshine the stars. Those local musical pioneers created a distinctly New Orleans sound during all-night jam sessions at the Dew Drop.

Car wash owners seek demolition of Tchoupitoulas cottages

By R. Stephanie Bruno and Katherine Hart
The City Council is set to determine the fate of three 19th century cottages on Tchoupitoulas Street at its Thursday (Feb. 1) meeting. The owners took their demolition request to the council after the Historic District Landmarks Commission blocked it. The doubles on the river side of the 5500 block of Tchoupitoulas are owned by Car Wash Blues, the company behind Uptown Car Wash, which surrounds the row of residential buildings. 
The owners want to raze the buildings so they can expand the car wash and add higher-margin detailing services, according to co-owner Andrew Stall. Detailing is the most lucrative element of the car wash business, he said.

New hotel, restaurant planned for St. Charles Avenue in Lower Garden District

A five-story hotel with a ground-floor restaurant and rooftop bar is in the works for the former site of the Trolley Stop on St. Charles Avenue. The owner and developer is Verdad Real Estate & Construction, the firm behind the redevelopment of the Magazine Street building that once housed Harry’s Ace Hardware. Verdad has hired local cocktail virtuoso Neal Bodenheimer of Cure, Vals and Cane & Table to oversee the restaurant and bar operations. LightHouse, a hotel management firm based in New York, will operate the hotel.

Dew Drop Inn set to reopen before year’s end

The Dew Drop Inn is set to reopen in winter 2023, the developers announced Thursday (Oct. 19) in a press release. The distinctly New Orleans landmark in Central City has been restored to its former glory as one of the country’s most culturally significant music venues. 

Once known as “the South’s swankiest spot,” the Dew Drop Inn’s current revival is led by real estate developer and New Orleans native Curtis Doucette Jr., whose passion for historical Black culture and music led him to acquire the Dew Drop in 2021 and spend three years restoring the beloved site, reimagining it as a destination that blends a legendary music venue, 17-room boutique hotel, restaurant and pool club. 

From the late 1930s until the late 1960s, the Dew Drop Inn hosted some of the most iconic musicians of our time, including legendary artists like Aretha Franklin, Marvin Gaye, Ray Charles, Little Richard, Tina Turner and Etta James, as well as local legends like Allen Toussaint and Irma Thomas, among many others. The venue served as an incubator for the birth of rhythm & blues and rock ’n’ roll. More than just a music venue, the Dew Drop Inn was a place where artists not only played but hung out, recorded and sometimes lived.

After 50 years, Dew Drop Inn gets ready to open its doors

Beginning this fall,  the legendary Dew Drop Inn in Central City is set to host live music for the first time in more than half a century. The city’s leading Black music venue for three mid-century decades, the club billed as “the swankiest spot in the South” holds a hallowed place in New Orleans cultural history and in rock ’n’ roll and rhythm-and-blues history. Lead developer Curtis Doucette Jr. told Uptown Messenger they are planning a mid-October opening for the music club. No word yet on the opening act, but he said he wants to bring back as many of the original Dew Drop musicians as he can. Of course, the Dew Drop community of musicians dates from the 1940s to 1970, so few remain on the scene.

Neutral Ground Coffee House planning move to Carrollton area

Neutral Ground Coffee House owners Caroline “Phant” Williams and James Naylor were driving through the Carrollton neighborhood recently in their quest to find a new home for the city’s oldest coffeehouse and entertainment venue. They had decided Carrollton would good fit for the Neutral Ground, exiled since it lost its lease on its longtime Danneel Street space in April. At the corner of Oak and Adams, the partners noticed an empty, dilapidated commercial building. “There’s just something very attractive about this building,” Williams said. “So we stopped and were like, ‘Wow, wouldn’t this be a great spot!’”

After a Google search failed to turn up any information on the building, they dropped the idea.

Viewpoint: It’s time to tear down Plaza Tower

Like many downtown residents, whenever I open my front door I catch a glimpse of the decaying Plaza Tower, once the grande dame of Loyola Avenue.  I see the blown-out windows, black netting and colorful graffiti that makes the building an ongoing eyesore. I’ve been in New Orleans long enough to remember when the Plaza Tower was the home or workspace to creatives types like urban planner and artist Bob Tannen and his wife Jeanne Nathan, who appreciated the building’s unique aesthetics. Current owner Joe Jaeger is trying to unload the asbestos-laden structure and the avoid hefty unpaid fines that have caught the attention of Inspector General Ed Michel. 

A 45-story 531-foot skyscraper, the Plaza Tower was the third tallest building in New Orleans when it debuted in 1968 but lost that distinction when the taller One Shell Square opened four years later. The Plaza Tower was designed in the modern style as an office building with a few residential spaces on the upper floors. By 2001, the building was suffering from leaks and deferred maintenance, which created a welcoming environment for toxic mold.

Children’s Hospital seeks input on changes to its Master Plan

Uptown residents living near Children’s Hospital can provide input tonight on potential changes to the hospital’s Institutional Master Plan. The Master Plan describes existing and future development on the hospital campus. Updates to this plan reflect the hospital’s recently completed campus transformation, completed renovations to our State Street campus buildings, updated traffic patterns throughout the hospital campus, and immediate future planning, which includes minimal new construction over the next several years. Neighbors can join the meeting anytime between 6 and 8 p.m. on Wednesday (July 19) at Worley Hall, 210 State St. The neighborhood meeting will be structured as a collaborative charette, with team members from Children’s Hospital, their architects, and consultants sharing components of our plans and seeking feedback.

Join Us for Senior Summer Tours 2023, hosted by Chelsey Richard Napoleon, Clerk of Civil District Court (sponsored)

Join Us for Senior Summer Tours 2023, hosted by Chelsey Richard Napoleon, Clerk of Civil District Court! Highlighting “Summer Splash” Pontchartrain Beach and Lincoln Beach. Tours will be offered July 20, August 1, 3, 10. Reach out via email or phone for more information:  civilclerkresearchctr@orleanscdc.com or 504-407-0106

About the Clerk of Civil District Court’s Office for the Parish of Orleans:
The Clerk’s Office consists of two divisions – Land Records and Civil. Our Civil Division is where civil cases — such as personal injury, accidents, successions and foreclosures — are filed.

Joshua Bruno buys Washington Place Apartments in his own bankruptcy sale

Controversial landlord Joshua Bruno has bought back Washington Place Apartments in Central City, one of six decrepit Bruno-owned complexes auctioned off in a court-ordered bankruptcy sale. The 25-unit building was purchased for $990,000 in what The Pulse, Elifin Realty’s weekly newsletter, described as “an arm’s length transaction.” The buyer is Central Holding, a limited liability company controlled by Bruno, another LLC with Bruno listed as both agent and officer, and the New Orleans Redevelopment Fund. The real estate development division of Hernandez Consulting & Construction, NORF Companies specializes in tax-advantaged investment strategies, such as historic tax credits and Qualified Opportunity Zone Funds. Opportunity Zone Funds, created in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, provide incentives to invest capital gain proceeds in areas designated as in need of economic expansion.