land use & development

Entrepreneur battles neighbors to open Daiquiri World restaurant

By |

An old Church’s Chicken building on Louisiana Avenue has turned into a battleground for a neighborhood association and a fledgling entrepreneur who is renovating it into a full-service restaurant with alcohol sales. The Delachaise Neighborhood Association filed an appeal with the Board of Zoning Adjustments to stop work on the building two blocks from St. Charles Avenue. It alleges that the planned Daiquiri World will be a bar disguised as a restaurant and that the layout resembles a fast-food operation. The BZA staff recommended denying the appeal, stating that the plans show a standard restaurant. But the BZA board said those plans are incomplete and are not stamped by a licensed architect.

land use & development

City Council approves compromise allowing new Magazine Street building

By |

The City Council backed a plan to approve a controversial new building on Magazine Street in the Irish Channel while requiring further design changes to the three-story mixed-use building. The Historic District Landmarks Commission had gave the project its conceptual approval in April. The Garden District Association then filed an appeal asking the City Council to overturn the HDLC’s decision. In the appeal, Garden District Association President Frank Tessier quotes liberally from the HDLC’s guidelines for new construction, pointing out requirements — such as aligning balconies, roof ridges and other elements with adjacent buildings — that he states were not followed by the commission when it approved the design for 2230 Magazine. The appeal states the building is too large for the site, despite guidelines that require compatibility in size and massing.

events

Neighborhood cleanup planned for Delachaise area

By |

The Delachaise Neighborhood Association, District B Councilwoman Lesli Harris’ office and the Department of Sanitation have organized a neighborhood cleanup day for Saturday, May 21. The association calls the event “a rare opportunity to clean up our neighborhood in one swoop.” Volunteers will meet at Samuels Square Park, 2100 Napoleon Ave., at 9 a.m.  From there, assignments will be provided and volunteers will break up into groups. The bags of trash will be brought back to Samuels Square Park, where city sanitation workers will pick them up. Garbage bags, gloves, T-shirts and refreshments will be provided. More volunteers are needed, even if it’s just for an hour.

Mardi Gras

Yardi Gras stories: ‘Pure Imagination’ fuels house floats in Broadmoor and Fontainebleau

By |

 

Last year ago, the unimaginable happened: February passed in New Orleans with no Carnival parades. With parades cancelled due to Covid, there were no massive floats rolling the street, no masses of revelers standing elbow-to-elbow and hollering to have some beads thrown their way. 

So New Orleanians had to use their own imagination and come up with a safer way to celebrate. What they came up with was Yardi Gras: a new tradition where revelers decorated their own homes as elaborate floats. This year, Mardi Gras is back — but Yardi Gras survives as well, along with the spirit of imagination and ingenuity it represents. While there are fewer homes participating in the Krewe of House Floats this year, there’s still plenty of creativity on display, as seen in the neighborhoods of Broadmoor and Fontainebleau.

Mardi Gras

Yardi Gras stories: University area house floats celebrate ‘Les Bons Temps’

By |

 

When three smaller subkrewes of the Krewe of House Floats —University, Freret and St. Charles Avenue — melded into one, an anything-goes theme evolved, which in turn became “Laissez Les Bons Temps Rouler,” said subkrewe captain Jenna Rockett. With no constraints to follow, krewe members improvised their individual whims. The Bergers of State Street decided to lean into their name by turning their house into a burger joint. The family’s “State Street Soda Shoppe” house float serves up a giant balcony burger, fries, a milkshake and an ice cream sundae. It’s a theme that delights the Bergers’ two young daughters, Lillian and Grace.

Krewe of House Floats

Yardi Gras stories: Irish Channel residents take a dip in the bayou

By |

 

The residents of the Irish Channel are once again showing their creativity and Carnival spirit in Year Two of the Krewe of House Floats. This year, the neighborhood’s theme is “Down on the Bayou.”

The Irish Channel subkrewe captain, Autumn Town, said that the theme is a way to pay homage to bayou communities struggling to recover from Hurricane Ida. Because New Orleanians are able to decorate their homes while so many people on the bayou are still rebuilding, the subkrewe is also holding a fundraiser for Ida relief. The KoHF participants are collecting supplies and funds for the People of the Bayou campaign as part of the neighborhood efforts. 

Town was the subkrewe’s co-captain last year and is flying solo this year. She first got involved when KoHF started in 2021 from a random post that popped up on her Facebook feed.

Yardi Gras stories: Audubon-Riverside neighborhood has a sense of déjà vu

By |

In its second year, the Audubon-Riverside subkrewe of House Floats selected the theme “Déjà Vu in 2022.” It has a double meaning. First, it’s here we are again — still with the pandemic. The Krewe of House Floats’ overall theme for the 2022 Carnival season, “Vaccinate, Decorate, Celebrate,” is also a nod to the enduring pandemic. 

Audubon-Riverside’s theme has a second meaning, recognizing that many residents plan to re-use most or all of their house float decorations from last year. One such resident is Sarena Teng, whose house float on Laurel Street at Napoleon has its own Instagram account (@queenofbouncehouse). Her Queen of Bounce House uses the same Big Freedia figure from 2021, but added a twist, based on the KoHF theme “Vaccinate, Decorate, Celebrate.”

“It is still and always will be the Queen of Bounce House, but this year, it’s ‘Big Freedia Saves the World’ against viral invaders,” Teng said. 

Playing off the popular 1980s “Space Invaders” video game, she made coronavirus germs out of lime green paper lanterns with hot-glued red glittery pompoms to look like spike proteins. Her Big Freedia has a giant vaccine syringe with a light-up laser gun that shoots down the germs. Nighttime viewers can see the vaccine explode in a fireball of green flashing lights.

good works

Broadmoor Improvement Association holding Day of Service on MLK Day

By |

The Broadmoor Improvement Association is holding a Day of Service event Monday (Jan. 17) in honor of Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Volunteers will repaint the mural on the Gen. Pershing Street side of Broadmoor Arts & Wellness Center and assist at the Broadmoor Food Pantry. The neighborhood association will also hold its first meeting of the year on Monday morning. To take part in the Day of Service, meet at 10 a.m. in the parking lot of the Broadmoor Arts & Wellness Center, 3900 Gen. Taylor St.

land use & development

Group working to add B.W. Cooper buildings to Broad Street Cultural District

By |

Broad Community Connections is proposing to include the B.W. Cooper public housing site in the South Broad Street Cultural District. 

Three original buildings are left of the original Calliope Projects, renamed for B.W. Cooper in 1981. After Hurricane Katrina, the development was shuttered. Most of it was demolished and replaced with Marrero Commons, a mixed-income townhouse-style development. Broad Community Connections, a nonprofit that works with small businesses to redevelop the Broad Street corridor, said about two-thirds of the Marrero Commons complex sits within the proposed expansion area. The proposal would expand the South Broad Street Cultural District to include the land bordered by Earhart Boulevard, South Dorgenois Street, Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and South Galvez Street. 

The Cultural Districts Program was created by the Louisiana legislature in 2007 to revitalize and preserve cultural hubs within the state.

land use & development

City plans to turn McDonogh 7 site into affordable housing

By |

By Sharon Lurye, Uptown Messenger

A proposal from the Housing Authority of New Orleans to turn the former McDonogh 7 school building into affordable housing drew intense interest from neighbors as more than 50 people attended an online community meeting on Friday (June 18). Representatives from HANO and the architecture firm VergesRome laid out plans for the Uptown site, which currently houses the upper grades of Audubon Charter School. The three-story school building would be turned into 27 affordable housing units for seniors, while the rest of the site would house 12 more units in the form of family duplexes. There would be 41 parking spaces in total, and 20% of the site would be green space. If all goes according to plan, the Housing Authority aims for City Council approval in December or January and would start construction in the fall of 2022 or spring of 2023.