Spectators look at the rising Mississippi River at the Audubon Riverside Park last Tuesday. (Sabree Hill, UptownMessenger.com)
The rising levels of Mississippi River are consuming conversations across the city. This Sunday, curiously got the better of me and I woke up early and decided to walk over to the river levee. The river was, and remains, disturbingly high. At the Steamboat Natchez, the flood gauge read about 15.5 feet. Where normally you would see several yards of rock on the banks, you could now only see about one yard, if that.
Some are saying that this is a 500-year flood event. The Bonnet Carre Spillway and the Morganza Spillway have been opened simultaneously for the first time since 1973. The Birds Point Floodway in Missouri had already been blasted open, the first time in history all three have been utilized. Continue reading »
Major events starting off this week include a 50th anniversary commemoration of the Freedom Riders at the Ashe Cultral Arts Center and the Party in the Garden at Hollygrove Market and Farm. The Prytania film festival continues, and you may also consider a separate screening at Trinity Episcopal School of the documentary “Race to Nowhere” about the untenable pressures placed on schoolchildren.
After the high-intensity tour of music provided by Jazz Fest over the last two weekends, Uptown New Orleans hosts a number of events this weekend centered around other art forms: a film festival, art gallery openings and markets, and book signings.
As many as five of 
The governing board of Lusher Charter School met with an attorney for an hour and a half in closed session Monday evening, coordinating strategies with other charter boards regarding the Orleans Parish School Board’s operating-agreement renewal process. 
Two Uptown neighborhood associations and a charter school board are all scheduled to have their monthly meetings on Thursday.
With relatively minor opposition, both a corner store’s request to reopen on Jackson Avenue in the Irish Channel and the conversion of a residentially-zoned building on General Pershing into the childcare center for Ecole Bilingue de la Nouvelle Orleans received the approval of the City Planning Commission on Tuesday afternoon.
