
Dereck C. Allen (via opcso.org)

Dereck C. Allen (via opcso.org)

A bank surveillance image shows two men police want to question about money believed to have been stolen during a home invasion robbery on Walnut Street. (via NOPD)
A trail of stolen Depression-era dollar bills that are unusual in appearance but not especially valuable led police this week to surveillance images of two men they want to question about a violent home-invasion robbery earlier this week. Continue reading »
Gina B. Womack, executive director and co-founder of Families and Friends of Louisiana’s Incarcerated Children, will give the keynote presentation, “School to Prison Pipeline: Current Issues in Juvenile Justice Reform,” on Saturday morning at the August Gillespie Memorial Community Breakfast at First Unitarian Universalist Church, 5212 South Claiborne Avenue. Continue reading »
Paintings, ceramics, found-object sculpture and a video installation will all be featured in the latest show at Du Mois Gallery on Freret Street, “Empire of the Senseless,” opening Saturday. Continue reading »

Areas highlighted in red will experience low water pressure Saturday.
Repairs to a fire hydrant and valves on a water main will cause low water pressure from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday in the area along Camp and Magazine streets around Jefferson Avenue, according to the Sewerage and Water Board. Continue reading »

With state and local elections two months away, the Irish Channel got an early start on political season Thursday night with a well-attended social event for candidates at a popular neighborhood bar.
At least eight candidates made appearances at Tracey’s on Magazine Street, all of whom other than state Rep. Walt Leger were running for various judicial seats: Regina Bartholomew, Herbert Cade, Nakisha Ervin-Knott, Ellen Hazeur, Clare Jupiter, Kris Kiefer and Franz Zibilich. The social had a decidedly low-key atmosphere, without formal speeches or introductions. Instead, the candidates and their supporters casually passed from group to group of the 30 or so association members and dozens more patrons in the bar. Continue reading »
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Christy Lorio (photo by Leslie Almeida)
Oh, August, why do you have to be so damn hot? Even though I haven’t been a student in quite some time, August always feels like the unofficial summer wind-down as kids go back to school and thoughts shift to fall wardrobes. However we all know that we’ve got at least two, possibly three more months of pool time. This is also the time of year that I get fed up with all of my warm weather clothes since I’ve been wearing the same things since April. It proves more and more difficult not to leave the house just wearing flip flops and cut off shorts but for vanity’s sake I resist. Continue reading »
Hollygrove Market & Farm needs your help! The Fruit Tree Harvesting Project is a finalist for the Pepsi Refresh Challenge, a nationwide funding program that offers $25,000 grants to winning contestants. The New Orleans Fruit Tree Project, one of Hollygrove Market & Farm’s flagship programs, is in need of your support to make it over the top to win that $25,000 and receive brand new equipment, materials, and supplies to help make it better than ever. Click here to support them NOW.
Keep reading to learn how you can help Hollygrove Market & Farm win this Challenge!
The elevation of the NOPD Second District’s former commander to deputy chief was made a permanent promotion Wednesday, police officials said, but a new leader for the Uptown-based district has yet to be selected. Continue reading »
The Chestnut Street home of DEQ scientist Michael Drury, 55, was raided in November 2009, and federal agents seized computers with several dozen sexual images of children, according to reporter Dominic Massa and our partners at WWL-TV.

Sen. Karen Carter Peterson and state Rep. Walt Leger at a town hall meeting in the Irish Channel in March. (Sabree Hill, UptownMessenger.com)
With state and local elections a little over two months away, the Irish Channel Neighborhood Association is hosting a “Meet the Candidates” social on Thursday. Continue reading »

The old Priestley campus, photographed in January (Sabree Hill, UptownMessenger.com)
The board of the Carrollton-Riverbend Neighborhood Association will continue its discussion of major goals for the year at a meeting Thursday night. Continue reading »

Saxophone guru Steve Goodson in his Uptown showroom holding one of his handmade creations, the Voodoo Rex Tenor. (Sabree Hill, UptownMessenger.com)
New Orleanians possess a presence that in my experience remains unparalleled, and we know our neighbors no matter what. By this I mean we all participate in the characterization of the city, and we do so seemingly effortlessly. Whether you’re John Goodman, John Georges, or John Fitzgerald. You live here. We know who you are and to a degree we don’t care. This remains one of the reasons the celebrity set can be drawn to the Crescent City. Anonymity in the light of day. We don’t care if you throw Super Bowl touchdown passes, win Grammys, or sautee garlic. It’s all the same, and you put your pants on one leg at a time like everybody else.
For years in my early days of slinging coffee at PJs on Maple I used to wait on this super nice guy. He came in generally in the late afternoon / early evenings and always ordered a cappucino. He was tall and real lean, salt and pepper hair usually kept under a beret or similar chapeau, and always a smile and a greeting. But I didn’t know his name or what he did. And it went on like this literally for years. One day, a co-worker said to me “You know who that is, right?” I didn’t. It didn’t matter really. “Charles Neville,” he said. “Oh. (pause) Oh! (pause) Oh, okay. Well,” I thought, “he’s a cool guy.” And good for him. He’s Charles Neville without being “Charles Neville.”
Years later after Katrina I moved to a new neighborhood, and I met another noteworthy saxophonist in my new neighbor, though like Charles, at the time I had no idea who he was or what he did. Initially Steve and I met while my wife and I began renovating the house next door. He and his wife Sharon were just as welcoming and warm as could be. And the more we got to know them, their presence became so ordinary and familiar, you could almost take it for granted. I knew Steve was a saxophonist, but I didn’t know much more than that. At home sporting a Monster Magnet tee or overalls or both and usually in Crocs, Steve comes across fairly unassuming, despite any distinctive eyeware or his wildish white mane a la Doc Brown.

Jean-Paul Villere
So I began to wonder. I know those in his industry know Steve, but do his neighbors, neighborhood, and city on the whole? Maybe. Maybe not. But here’s a little insight into “the man in the purple house” next to me, a man my girls know simply as “Mr. Steve.” Continue reading »

The Lorraine Apartments on St. Charles Avenue. (Sabree Hill, UptownMessenger.com)
Despite an ardent appeal by neighbors Tuesday for the survival of a classic St. Charles Avenue apartment house, a city panel denied the vacant Lorraine building the rezoning it needs to reopen, leaving it in a bureaucratic purgatory with no realistic prospect for any use at all. Continue reading »

As Lycée Français de la Nouvelle-Orléans prepares to open next week for its first year of school, the chair of its board is preparing to return after several months of absence, and a new board member was selected. Continue reading »

Nix Library (Robert Morris, UptownMessenger.com)
A major air-conditioning system failure has kept Carrollton’s Nix Library closed since early June, but it will reopen as soon as the system can be replaced, officials reassured a concerned neighborhood Monday night. Continue reading »
A man was shot in the shoulder at a busy Uptown intersection on Monday night by an assailant who had driven him there, police said. Continue reading »
Freret Neighbors United will hold its quarterly meeting at 6 p.m. tonight (Tuesday, Aug. 9) at Samuel J. Green Charter School at the corner of Valence and LaSalle streets. Continue reading »
Three Uptown projects — a request to sell alcohol at the CVS under construction on Claiborne, a new clay studio on the Freret commercial corridor, and an apartment building on St. Charles Avenue — are all slated for consideration today by the City Planning Commission. Continue reading »