President Obama speaking at the House of Blues on Decatur Street on Wednesday afternoon, after an earlier fundraiser at a home on Audubon Boulevard. (image via WWLTV.com)
President Obama made a campaign stop in Uptown New Orleans on Wednesday afternoon, though it was somewhat more discrete than the large crowds he drew at a House of Blues fundraiser or his speech to the National Urban League conference at the Convention Center. Continue reading »
Dana Kaplan
We are so happy to announce that we are now at our brand new location: 5014 Freret Street (between Soniat and Robert Streets, two doors down from Dat Dog)!!! We chose this historic and up-and-coming neighborhood because it reflects a vibrancy and tenacity that epitomizes the spirit of New Orleans. We are ecstatic to be a part of this community! Continue reading »
The International School of Lousiana’s Olivier Street campus in Algiers. (Robert Morris, UptownMessenger.com)
Meanwhile, the school’s governing board continues to discuss where to put solar panels on its Camp Street campus, and where to find additional space for the overflow of upper-grade students expected there in the 2013-14 school year. Continue reading »
A Canal St streetcar passes in front of the tidy of debris of what was once the Pallas Hotel, its implosion a rare summertime crowd pleaser by New Orleans standards. (photo by Jean-Paul Villere for UptownMessenger.com)
Jean-Paul Villere
Last week I went on about how New Orleans’ growth and popularity possesses somewhat of an unknown trajectory, but what I failed to really touch on is what no one in the region has had to deal with this year – at least yet. I am of course talking about any nasty inklings of a hurricane, tropical depression, or any other event Mother Nature may wish to conjure a la water and ye olde Gulf, anything we as a society may wish to properly name. Betsy, George, Cindy, the names all come crashing back us. Ivan, Ike, Emily, and didn’t we get into Alpha and Beta when we ran through all the names in 2005? Wacky. . . Continue reading »
The International School of Louisiana will hold its regular monthly board meeting at 6 p.m. tonight (July 25) at its Eastbank campus, 1400 Camp Street, to discuss exploration of a satellite campus for that facility and solar panels on the school grounds, as well as issues relating to the Westbank and Jefferson Parish campuses. Continue reading »
If your family is planning one last vacation for the summer, you’re probably looking at baggage fees as you book your flights. But travel smart this summer: skip both the fees and the hassle by mailing your luggage with Parcels and Post New Orleans. Shipping can be much less expensive than baggage fees, and with affordable delivery confirmation, you can rest easy knowing all your personal belongings will be waiting for you when you get to where you’re going. Stop in the store or call for more details today. Continue reading »
Virginia Saussy of New Orleans-based confectioner Sucre hands out samples of chocolate while Marc Jones, senior vice president of The Fresh Market, discusses the store’s offerings in front of its international aisle during a preview of the store prior to Wednesday morning’s grand opening. Sucre will have a whole section featuring its drinking chocolates, artisan bars and candied pecans, and Saussy said The Fresh Market is helping it place products in stores up to 100 or even 300 miles away. “Their local program is really incredible,” Saussy said.
The Fresh Market, a North Carolina-based chain of upscale groceries founded in 1982 that now has 119 locations, will open its St. Charles Avenue location at 9 a.m. Wednesday in the former Bultman funeral home that was a Borders book store for several years after Hurricane Katrina. (Robert Morris, UptownMessenger.com)
Broken windows along the front of the Sigma Alpha Mu house on Broadway Street, photographed Tuesday. (Robert Morris, UptownMessenger.com)
Fire damage can be seen in a second-story window and on the roof at the rear of the building. (Robert Morris, UptownMessenger.com)
A vacant Tulane fraternity house was damaged in a fire early Friday morning, authorities said, leaving a newly scorched structure directly next door to an empty lot on Broadway Street where a frat house that burned last October was recently torn down.
The former Sigma Alpha Mu house at 712 Broadway caught fire around 1 a.m. July 20, said Tulane University spokesman Michael Strecker. The building was unoccupied and undergoing renovations, so there were no injuries, Strecker said. He referred questions about the cause of the fire to the New Orleans Fire Department, which did not have information on the investigation readily available Tuesday afternoon. Continue reading »
A Carrollton Avenue gas station was robbed Monday night, and a woman leaving Freret Street was attacked from behind in a purse snatching last week, police said. Continue reading »
ENCORE Academy, the new music-focused charter school that will spend its first year located in the new Crocker building in Uptown’s Milan neighborhood, will hold a board meeting at 6:30 p.m. tonight (Tuesday, July 24) to receive updates on the construction of the new building and on the school’s start-up loan, as well as for accountability training for the board. Continue reading »
In an effort to encourage a thriving online news culture in New Orleans, Uptown Messenger has joined with three other Internet-based news rooms — NOLA Defender, the Lens and My Spilt Milk — to form the New Orleans Digital News Alliance. Continue reading »
Seeking reform to city laws such as those that require them to move every 45 minutes, a half-dozen members of the New Orleans Food Truck Coalition will assemble from 6 to 9 p.m. tonight (Tuesday, July 24) to show off their skills and talk policy at the Ashe Cultural Arts Center at 1712 Oretha Castle Haley Blvd, reports Shay Sokol of NOLA Defender in an interview with Empanada Intifada owner Taylor Jackson.
A Thai restaurant’s request for alcohol sales at its Maple Street location and a proposed fast-food restaurant in a service station on South Claiborne Avenue will return to the City Planning Commission on Tuesday, after their initial trips through the city bureaucracy were derailed by the council standoff in May. Continue reading »
No one was injured in the crash near the Pontchartrain Expressway just before 5 p.m. rush hour, according to our partners at WWL-TV:
A man walking his dog Monday morning was cut with a knife and robbed of his wallet on Calhoun Street in the university area, police said. Continue reading »
Firefighters look for hot spots in the wreckage of a shed behind a Laurel Street home. (Robert Morris, UptownMessenger.com)
A shed in a Laurel Street backyard caught fire Monday afternoon and spread to the main house, damaging the rear bedroom and the attic and drawing firefighters from the scene of a much larger Constance Street fire from just a few hours earlier. Continue reading »
Flames rise from the roof and windows of an abandoned service station on the corner of Constance and Laurel on Monday morning. (photo courtesy of Jeff Lopez)
An abandoned service station at the corner of Constance and Peniston streets burned to the ground Monday morning, damaging the house next door but harming no one, witnesses and officials said.
Owen Courreges
For those of you who have been under a rock since, well, ever, Mayor Mitch Landrieu and the Police Association of New Orleans (PANO) don’t always see eye to eye. In fact, it’s gotten to the point where they just plain don’t like each other.
Part of the issue is that Landrieu has repeatedly said that the NOPD has sufficient manpower, while PANO argues that it has been chronically understaffed. The latest volley occurred recently when PANO released the results of a survey performed by Tulane Criminologist Peter Scharf. That study purported to show that an overwhelming majority of NOPD officers feel the department needs more officers and better equipment, and that morale is circling the drain.
Continue reading »
A fresh-food market plans to bring the produce of 200 farmers to O.C. Haley Boulevard, and the local Mediterrean chain Byblos plans to move into the space on Magazine Street recently vacated by the closure of Nacho Mama’s. Continue reading »