By Leslie Jacobs
Performance is uneven in traditional public schools. Performance is uneven in charter schools. And performance can also be wildly uneven in private schools receiving state vouchers — demonstrating the need for stronger accountability over this growing program. Continue reading »
Tulane President Scott Cowen speaks about the proposed stadium before the City Planning Commission in June. (UptownMessenger.com file photo by Robert Morris)
Councilwoman Susan Guidry will ask the New Orleans City Council to withdraw plans Thursday for a new zoning district that would have governed the construction of a football stadium on Tulane’s uptown campus, a day after university President Scott Cowen is scheduled to speak to neighbors about the plans. Continue reading »
Baby alligators were stolen from the Audubon Zoo gift shop last week and abandoned in a plastic container on the side of an Irish Channel street, police said. Continue reading »
Officers with the NOPD Second District look along Maple Street for surveillance cameras that may have captured footage of a robbery that took place in the 7600 block on Monday evening. (Robert Morris, UptownMessenger.com)
An armed robbery on Maple Street on Monday night and a carjacking on Nelson about half an hour later may have been committed by the same group of men, police said. Continue reading »
Lycee Francais’ new St. Francis of Assisi campus on Patton Street. (UptownMessenger.com file photo by Sabree Hill)
The school is nearly tripling its enrollment next year, and its plans for handling that growth formed the majority of a public hearing on the 2012-13 budget Monday night that took the form of a conversation between board members, the school business manager and a handful of parents and reporters. The budget will be voted on in a separate meeting Tuesday night. Continue reading »
The modified floor plan being sought by the Domino’s Pizza on Freret Street. (via City Planning Commission)
The Domino’s Pizza location on Freret Street plans to expand its kitchen space and add two tables for outdoor dining, based on a request the City Planning Commission will hear Tuesday afternoon. Continue reading »
Owen Courreges
This past week I had occasion to imagine police Chief Ronal Serpas as some latter day Victor Frankenstein. Serpas, presumably clasping his hands in a maniacal manner, announced his intention to reanimate something best left dead in the proverbial ground.
What is this metaphorical corpse of which I speak? Why, the New Orleans crime camera program. Serpas has seen fit to spit in the face of God and nature (well, at least the face of good government) and propose that the crime cameras, those icons of corruption and graft, be brought back on-line. The electricity, I’m told, will be provided via a lightening rod mounted on police headquarters, a.k.a. “Castle Serpas.” Continue reading »
Dana Kaplan
This fall, Sophie B. Wright Institute for Academic Excellence will add four Advanced Placement courses — which can earn high school students college credit — in literature, music theory, U.S. history, and world history, according to a report by charter school reporter Danielle Bell at The Lens.
A well-reviewed sandwich shop is expanding to South Carrollton, a French Quarter Bar and Grill is moving to Prytania near Touro Infirmary, and a new restaurant on Magazine Street has replaced its chef. Continue reading »
A Tulane student walking on Audubon Street was robbed of her purse at gunpoint Friday night, and another woman was carjacked on Audubon Street several hours later, authorities said. Continue reading »
Craig Giesecke
We’ve been working for the past several days on a new menu — not so much changing what we offer (we’re adding a few things), but adjusting the pricing. It has been nearly two years since we’ve made these adjustments and, if you do any grocery shopping at all, you know things just don’t cost what they did two years ago. Continue reading »
“Beasts of the Southern Wild” plays before a sold-out audience at the Prytania Theatre on Friday, July 6. (Sabree Hill, UptownMessenger.com)
Film director Benh Zeitlin speaks to the audience at the Prytania Theatre. (Sabree Hill, UptownMessenger.com)
In “Beasts of the Southern Wild,” a little girl named Hushpuppy is told of her destiny to one day be “king of the Bathtub.”
On Friday night, as her creator fielded question after question about her, it was clear that the sold-out audience at the Prytania Theatre had been conquered. Continue reading »
In hopes of helping cost-conscious brides find high-quality wedding dresses, the Junior League plans to open a Bridal Boutique about once a month at Bloomin’ Deals thrift shop. Continue reading »
Even as education officials tout increases in test scores around Louisiana and in New Orleans, the only open-admissions school in Uptown New Orleans that exceeded state averages in any subject last year was New Orleans Charter Science and Math High School — and that was only in two of four subjects.
Among other high schools, New Orleans College Prep was only a few points off the state average in three of four subjects, and Eleanor McMain Secondary School generally trailed Prep by a few more points in each subject. But Sophie B. Wright Institute of Academic Excellence had decidedly mixed results, and the phasing-out Walter L. Cohen High School and the now-closed Sojourner Truth Academy scored even lower. Continue reading »
Start the Adventure in Reading, a volunteer program to teach reading skills to second-grade students through one-on-one tutoring, is holding a series of summer work sessions for prospective tutors this fall. Continue reading »
A June 24 shooting on LaSalle, followed by a retaliatory shooting the next day in the 1200 block of Simon Bolivar, where a 5-year-old girl was shot to death in May. (map via NOPD.com)
And, in an apparently unrelated case, police are still trying to sort out the sequence of events that led to a man being shot and an SUV being overturned in a violent crash at Loyola and Louisiana earlier this week. Continue reading »
The Rally’s fast-food pick-up window on South Claiborne Avenue was robbed at gunpoint early Wednesday morning, police said. Continue reading »
Allan Katz and Danae Columbus
The authors of this column are among the many thousands of Americans for whom the 4th of July is a lot more than an occasion to eat grilled hot dogs and barbecued chicken while enjoying the company of friends and their kids.
Allan and Danae are both progeny of families that underwent great hardship and took enormous risks to come to America and have found the U.S. to be a “golden land,” a place of great opportunities and freedoms. And, in New Orleans, Allan and Danae have found a culture that has welcomed them and allowed them to share in the unique blessings of a great city. Continue reading »
A map of the proposed Uptown-University cultural district, marked in red. Previously existing cultural districts are shown in yellow. (map courtesy of the state Department of Culture, Recreation and Tourism.)
A major section of Uptown from Carrollton to Napoleon Avenue could soon become exempt from sales taxes on sales of original art, and most property owners in the area could become eligible for state tax credits for nearly any kind of renovations they do to their homes under a program on track for approval this summer. Continue reading »