Japanese restaurant and sushi bar Origami shortly after officially opening Thursday evening on Freret St. Mitsuko Tanner, veteran local sushi chef, opened the restaurant with business partners Masa Tsukikawa and Thuan D. Vu at the former Friar Tucks location. The restaurant has a full bar, including a variety of sakes, and will serve both lunch and dinner. (Sabree Hill, UptownMessenger.com)
A new restaurant on Magazine Street, a new nightclub on Freret Street and a new home in place of a historic one were all given approval by the City Council on Thursday, though each project has drawn its share of objections.
Johnny V’s restaurant next to Monkey Hill bar and the proposed Publiq House in the first floor of the Neighborhood Housing Services building on Freret were given tentative approval to step forward, receiving an affirmative vote that will not go into effect until good-neighbor agreements are signed. Meanwhile, a historic home on St. Charles Avenue can be demolished, after the council decided that the home that will replace it represents an improvement to the showcase street. Continue reading »
Walter L. Cohen High School is slated to be gradually taken over by NOLA College Prep over the next two years, one of nine struggling Recovery School District campuses around the city to be placed under control of a new charter operator, officials said this week. No other Uptown school was included in the list, but the announcement casts the challenges that Sojourner Truth Academy faces this year into sharp relief. Continue reading »
Allan Katz and Danae Columbus
Every resident of Uptown New Orleans has reason to be afraid today. On Halloween night, shootings in the Vieux Carre, on Canal Street and in two neighborhoods left two dead and 16 wounded. While the violence didn’t occur Uptown, it was surely close enough to send a ripple of fear through the community. Continue reading »
One of three surveillance images of a man believed to be selling property stolen from the 900 block of Soniat Street. (via NOPD)
Three Uptown land-use projects that have each generated a fair amount of controversy — the proposed demolition of a historic home on St. Charles Avenue, permission for a restaurant to open in spite of unpermitted additions and a new nightclub on Freret Street — are all slated for New Orleans City Council hearing on Thursday, according to the agenda. Continue reading »
Promoting healthy living for children, the First Lady read and exercised with children and parents at the Royal Castle Child Development Center on Eagle Street, according to a report by Tania Dall and our partners at WWL-TV:
Audubon Charter School's Broadway campus.
Where they disagree is whether the traffic plan must be finalized before the renovations can proceed, as the school seeks neighborhood support for some setback changes before the city’s Board of Zoning Adjustments this month. Continue reading »
Two neighboring Uptown congregations — Temple Sinai and the St. Charles Avenue Baptist Church — will join together for a weekly dinner and study series this month. Continue reading »
The Second District’s weekly leadership meetings will be held at Children’s Hospital, 200 Henry Clay Avenue, at 10:30 a.m. on Thursdays for the foreseeable future. This week’s meeting will be in the second-floor meeting room.
The meetings are open to the public.
Whether to support the opening of a Magazine Street restaurant that improperly added an upstairs space will be decided tonight (Tuesday, Nov. 1) by the Audubon-Riverside Neighborhood Association as the deadline nears for a City Council decision on the issue. Continue reading »
Costumed children walk through a home referred to as "Nightmare on State St." carrying trash bags full of candy on Halloween night. (Sabree Hill, UptownMessenger.com)
A business in the 4900 block of Magazine Street was robbed early Sunday morning, police said. Continue reading »
A tardy Ray Davies plays with a full backing band at The Preservation Hall stage, electrifying a sizable crowd with new work as well as "All Day and All of The Night" and "Sunny Afternoon." (Jean-Paul Villere for UptownMessenger.com)
Owen Courrèges
Here in New Orleans, we’re no strangers to the idea of police officers breaking the law. This city has seen members of its constabulary sent to death row at Angola Penitentiary for the most reprehensible crimes.
Given this background, it is hardly surprising that New Orleanians are un-phased, if not downright blasè, about minor acts of police misconduct. Alas, being the Big Easy’s resident Grumpy Gus, I’m definitely the exception to this rule. This past Saturday evening, I noticed an NOPD cruiser parked in front of the fire hydrant across from my house. I believe the officer lives somewhere nearby, as this is hardly the first time I’ve seen that cruiser blocking the hydrant. Continue reading »
Snoop Dogg returns to Voodoo sporting a Colston jersey to an adoring crowd, opening for Blink-182. (Jean-Paul Villere for UptownMessenger.com)
The Women of Class SA&P 5th Anniversary second line
The locations of three drug busts in Central City this week. (via nopd.com)
If there is any truth in tweets, as in Soundgarden's announcement of reforming New Year's 2010 that "school is back in session," then consider their performance in New Orleans' City Park Friday closing out the first day of Voodoo Fest their master class. A full 2 hour set of self-labeled "old shit," the band performed with a less is more if not unhurried approach, with regionally relevant banter between songs. Whether being pulled over decades ago in Lake Charles and being shaken down by the DEA or recalling not remembering the Crescent City because of days of blackout drinking, Chris Cornell connected with the teeming masses seemingly graciously. (Jean-Paul Villere for UptownMessenger.com)
What has happened to New Orleans politics? There was a time when it wasn’t out of the ordinary to have turnouts in excess of 70 percent in New Orleans for mayoral runoffs, gubernatorial runoffs and presidential elections. How then can we explain a 23 percent turnout for the October 22 primary that included a governor’s race, a lieutenant governor’s race, a secretary of state race, legislative and judicial races? Continue reading »