CAT’S CLAW KILLS OAKS AND OTHER TREES

August 26, 2017 by Charlie London

Click on the photo for a larger view

CAT’S CLAW KILLS OAKS AND OTHER TREES

A concerned neighbor notified me that large trees were being removed on Ursulines. On Saturday, August 26, 2017, BDG Tree Service, a crew hired by Entergy, removed dead oaks and other trees on Ursulines at North White.

Many of the cut branches I saw on the ground were not only dead but covered in cat’s claw vines. If you have large trees on or near your property that you want to remain there, pull the cat’s claw off of the tree before it gets out of hand and literally strangles the life out of the tree. Pull the cat’s claw off of the tree and dig it up. Cat’s Claw is an invasive species that is remarkably resilient. It must be dug up. If you use weed killer on the cat’s claw, be extremely careful to only spray the cat’s claw and not the tree.

While it may be distressing to see the huge trees go, it is much less distressing than having that same dead tree on your roof during a storm. Thank you BDG Tree Service and Entergy!

If you have cat’s claw on trees between the sidewalk and street, alert your neighbors and ask for help. If the tree is between the sidewalk and street you can call 311 for help but it may take a while. Why not get a group of neighbors together and solve the cat’s claw problem? See an example of a tree being saved from the killer vine below:

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Article below courtesy Debbie M. Lord and the Press Register
http://blog.al.com/living-press-register/2009/05/deceptively_beautiful_and_ridi.html

So many of you couldn’t help but notice its catastrophic green tide of foliage this year, breaking over trees and buildings, spewing streams of hazard-yellow blooms.

Cat’s claw, to answer your questions, is what it’s called, and of course it’s beautiful, in the way all the great predator cats of the world are wildly, terrifyingly beautiful — and best admired from afar.

Cat’s claw (the scientist who gave it the official name Macfadyena unguis-cati must have thought himself clever) is a South American vine that was probably introduced to the coastal South sometime early in the last century.

Used to be, there was an astonishing testament to the tenacity of cat’s claw, just below the interstate bridges headed into New Orleans. You could see it a mile away: The roof of a huge warehouse supported a jungle of cat’s claw green and yellow that could have covered four football fields. It took your breath away, seeing it crouched and ready to pounce on New Orleans harbor.

Cat’s claw seems to have a special attachment for roofs throughout the coastal South. In downtown Mobile, the tops of a number of houses and businesses are draped with it, as if wearing absurd green wigs, with thick curls of cat’s claw dangling from the eaves.

Cat’s claw is ideally suited for this rooftop lifestyle. The vine does, after all, have veritable claws — a trio of wiry, grasping tendrils at the tip of every leaf that dig into everything they touch, including wood, brick and concrete.

A shingled roof, with its rough surface and a thousand edges, is the ideal scratching post for cat’s claw. Less rapacious vines, even if they managed to hang on to a roof, would soon wither from the intense heat and blistering sunlight. But cat’s claw seems to seek out such seemingly inhospitable places. Even under the intensity of the summer sun, cat’s claw remains lush and green on its rooftop perches.

Of course, cat’s claw does climb other objects just as readily, and in Mobile has engulfed the tops of a number of large oaks.

But you don’t notice the vine in the trees, since it doesn’t really produce much foliage and flowers until it springs into the full sunlight at the very top of the canopy, out of eyesight of all below.

I haven’t passed by the warehouse in New Orleans on a summer day in the past couple of years, but chances are very good the old jungle of cat’s claw is still there. Cat’s claw is notoriously hard to control. Its sprawling tentacles are supported by a defiant root system that can spread over an acre or more. Every few feet, the root system swells into a large potato-like tuber that sends up another sprout. Cutting one vine only ensures that a hundred other vines attached to these tubers will grow more vigorously.

And that’s why you’ll find far more written about how to get rid of cat’s claw than you’ll find about how to grow it.
Here’s all you need to know about cultivating it: Anybody who doesn’t know better can grow it almost anywhere in the coastal South. It thrives even in very poor soils — to judge by some of the specimens downtown, moderately crumbly asphalt suits it just fine — and it’s famously drought-tolerant, surviving even in the desert climates of the West. While young, it is fairly shade-tolerant, but it is, at heart, a light hog, and by hook or by crook, will find a way to the sunniest spot in your yard, on top of your house, smothering the tops of your tallest trees.

The only natural curb on its rampant growth in our climate would be an exceptionally severe winter (it doesn’t often survive typical winters farther inland, north of Montgomery, which may be why it hasn’t become a legendary Southern icon like kudzu). Once every several years, a harsh cold front may kill much of the above-ground portions of the vine even in coastal areas. But substantial pieces of the root are likely to survive (as they have for decades in downtown Mobile) and will quickly resprout and produce hundreds of feet of vine in a couple of years.

Because it is such an outrageous specimen and produces genuinely showy flowers, one is always tempted to try to find a spot where it might be tolerated.

But keep two prerequisites in mind when planting: Cat’s claw needs something truly monumental, and preferably unattractive, to climb onto. And its root system should be surrounded on all sides by a dense, deep sea of asphalt and concrete, to limit the development of its surrounding tubers. Junkyards and the faceless north facade of Mobile’s Government Plaza come to mind, though I imagine it could be used just as effectively on the prison-like walls of Wal-Mart and other Big Box stores.

In case you didn’t understand: No home garden could accommodate its massive scale and rank growth.
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Perhaps, therefore, we’re fortunate that cat’s claw is not an easy vine to find at local retailers. Many nurseries wouldn’t touch it with a 10-foot pole because of its invasive reputation and the difficulty of controlling it in a pot.
It’s easy to propagate, which is probably why it spread so quickly through the warmer parts of the globe, but no responsible person is going to tell you how to make more of it. Some hard-headed gardeners will no doubt proclaim to have found it for sale on some Internet site, most likely from some Northern greenhouse operation where long winters tame its bad habits. But if you do bring it home, be courteous enough to let the neighbors know, so they’ll have time to put their houses on the market.

Filed Under: More Great Posts! Tagged With: bayou st john, best neigborhood in new orleans, cat's claw, faubourg st john, kudzu, New Orleans, new orleans best neighborhood, north white, oak trees, Ursulines

Neighbors on Ursulines Brighten Holiday

December 26, 2014 by Charlie London

photos by Charlie London

Christmas night, I took a long stroll around Faubourg St. John taking random photos of lights neighbors had put up for the holiday. What was going to be a thirty minute walk turned into a four hour hike. While I did get a bunch of photos, they do not fully represent the enormity of enthusiasm Faubourg St. John residents have for the holiday season. So, if you would like to have your house added to this post or would like to have your street represented, please send high quality photos of the holiday lights on your street to [email protected].

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Filed Under: More Great Posts! Tagged With: bayou st john, christmas, faubourg st john, New Orleans, Ursulines

Erroneous Alcohol Permit Revoked

November 19, 2014 by Charlie London

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The New Orleans Alcohol Beverage Control board ordered the S Express convenience store at 2703 Ursulines Avenue to stop selling hard liquor immediately, after officials and Bayou St. John residents argued Tuesday afternoon that the store’s permit was granted mistakenly.

Click here for the rest of the story in the Mid-City Messenger.

***


Video of S-Express hearing on the erroneous permit

***

The Relationship Between Alcohol Availability and Injury and Crime

Introduction
There is a growing body of research that shows what many people already know: areas with more alcohol outlets (a business or location where alcoholic beverages are sold) tend to experience more alcohol-related injury and crime. Incidents of sexual and other assaults, domestic violence, child abuse, youth violence, homicides, alcohol-related motor vehicle crashes, and drunk driving have all been shown to increase when the availability of alcohol increases.

Concern among local communities generally focuses on alcohol availability from commercial outlets, such as bars and retail stores. But public availability of alcohol, or alcohol that is served at public events and in public places such as parks, can be a significant source of alcohol in the community and should also be of concern.

The Facts
The number of alcohol outlets is related to violent assaults. One study showed that each additional alcohol outlet was associated with 3.4 additional assaults per year. Scribner, R., Mackinnon, D. & Dwyer, J.: “The risk of assaultive violence and alcohol availability in Los Angeles County.” American Journal of Public Health (85) 3: 335-340. 1995.

Alcohol outlet density has been shown to be the single most important environmental factor explaining why violent crime rates are higher in certain areas of the city than in others. LaBouvie, E. & Ontkush, M.:”Violent crime and alcohol availability: relationships in an urban community.” Journal of Public Health Policy 19(3):303-318. 1998.

There are a greater number of alcohol-related injury crashes in cities with higher outlet densities. A 1% increase in outlet density means a .54% increase in alcohol-related crashes. Thus, a city of 50,000 residents with 100 alcohol outlets would experience an additional 2.7 crashes for each new outlet opened. Scribner, R., Mackinnon, D. & Dwyer, J.: “Alcohol outlet density and motor vehicle crashes in Los Angeles County cities.” Journal of Studies on Alcohol (44): 447-453, July 1994.

Blocks that have more bars have higher crime rates for murder, rape, assault, robbery, burglary, grand theft and auto theft. Adding one bar to a block would result in 3.38 crimes committed on that block in a year. It would increase the risk of murder taking place on that block by 5%, and increase the risk of having a violent crime of any type by 17.6%. Runcek, D. & Maier, P. “Bars, blocks and crimes revisited: linking the theory of routine activities to the empiricism of ‘hot spots.’ “ Criminology (29) 4: 725-753. 1991.

The level of drinking, drinking participation, and participation in binge drinking are all significantly higher among all college students when a greater number of outlets licensed to sell alcoholic beverages exist near campus. This is particularly true for underage drinking. Chaloupka, F. & Wechsler, H. “Binge drinking in college: the impact of price, availability and alcohol control policies.” Contemporary Economic Policy, vol. xiv, October 1996.

Freedom from unwanted interruptions in one’s house or place of business are fundamental legal rights. A basic tenet of law is the right to the “quiet enjoyment” of one’s own property. High densities of alcohol outlets cause noise, traffic, loitering, and other disturbances of the public peace. Preventing Problems Related to Alcohol Availability: Environmental Approaches. U.S. DHHS Pub No. (SMA) 99-3298.

Policy Solutions
Communities can influence both alcohol availability and consumption, and thereby mitigate related problems, by controlling the number of alcohol outlets, regulating the behavior of current outlets, and even closing problem outlets. These measures, along with others such as stricter enforcement on underage sales of alcohol and responsible alcohol service training, are part of a broader strategy that communities can implement to prevent and reduce threats to the health and safety of their residents from alcohol abuse.

Filed Under: Zoning Issues Tagged With: alcohol, avenue, convenience store, crime, express, New Orleans, permit, s, s-express, soprano's, ursuline, Ursulines

PORCH CRAWL

June 12, 2014 by Charlie London

porch-logoRobert Grove said in The Advocate:

“This year’s Porch Crawl featured six beautiful homes and porches, all within easy walking distance of each other. At every stop on the tour, patrons enjoyed food from area restaurants and assorted libations to wash it all down with.”

Please visit the link for the rest of the story:
http://www.theneworleansadvocate.com/community/crescentcity/9441250-171/la-vie-de-ville-faubourg
***
Melinda Shelton had this to say about the upcoming Porch Crawl:
While summertime heats up, it doesn’t mean life in New Orleans slows down. After all, we live in the city that gave the world cocktails, so certainly we know how to concoct ways to enjoy life—high humidity and all. One of the most popular events is the Porch Crawl, which the Faubourg St. John Neighborhood Association hosts every summer. The slogan is a masterpiece: “Here in New Orleans, we don’t hide crazy; we parade it on the front porch and give it a cocktail.”

Click on any photo for a larger view.


Proceeds will be used to buy swings for Desmare playground.

 

Filed Under: Featured Tagged With: bayou st john, best neighborhood in New Orleans, drink, faubourg st john, fun, kennedy park, New Orleans, new orleans best neighborhood, party, Porch Crawl, responsibly, Ursulines

2014 PORCH CRAWL

May 11, 2014 by Charlie London

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PORCH CRAWL TICKETS available at Swirl and Terranova’s.



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The James Andrews Trio will once again be participating in the 2014 PORCH CRAWL in Faubourg St. John!

PORCHES:

1204 N. Lopez | 1219 N. Lopez | 3129 Bell Street | 3014 Ursulines | 3008 Ursulines | 1132 Gayoso

RESTAURANTS:

fairgroundsFairgrounds

cafe-degas1Café Degas

SANTAFESanta Fe

liuzzasLiuzza’s by the Track

LOLAsLola’s

slow-food-nolaSlow Food New Orleans

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LangeTwins logo

Check out the list below of drinks to look for during the 2014 PORCH CRAWL in Faubourg St. John. Liquor provided by Beam Global. Fine wines from Lange Twins Winery.

Adult snowballs with Cruzan rum.
Margarita on the rocks.
Candy shot martini with glass.
Bourbon Lemonade.
Big Ginger.
Velvet sin liquor.

TICKETS will be available at Terranova’s and Swirl.

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PorchCrawl2014for-sidebarFaubourg St. John’s

2014 PORCH CRAWL!

The event will take place on and around Ursulines Avenue in beautiful Faubourg St. John.
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Filed Under: Featured Tagged With: best neighborhood in New Orleans, event, faubourg st john, fun, New Orleans, Porch Crawl, Ursulines

Party Thursday at 5:30

April 20, 2014 by Charlie London

2917ursulines-webRenovators’ Happy Hour Goes to Faubourg St. John

EVENT DETAILS

Thursday, April 24
5:30 p.m. to 7 p.m.

2917 Ursulines Ave. (between N. Gayoso and N. Dupre)

GoogleMap

EVENT OVERVIEW

Visit this Neoclassical house on Ursulines Avenue that is being restored to its original glory.

This highly modified Neoclassical house on Ursulines Avenue has been gutted, and many of the anachronistic elements removed, to restore it to its original glory. The historic body of the house will utilize the Residential State Historic Rehabilitation Tax Credit while a non-contributing addition was demolished to make way for an addition including a great room with exposed steel and reclaimed wood tread staircase leading to the master suite with vaulted ceilings and new double-hung wood windows.

Light refreshments provided. Wine and beer available for a suggested donation.

EVENT COST

FREE for PRC members
$10 for non-members

Light refreshments provided. Wine and beer available for a suggested donation.

For more information, contact Suzanne at 504.636.3399 or [email protected].

 

Renovators’ Happy Hour goes to Faubourg St. John

Thursday, April 24

Tour a historic renovation-progress, learn from the renovators, and enjoy a glass of wine at the PRC’s Renovators’ Happy Hour. This highly modified Neoclassical house on Ursulines Avenue has been gutted and many of the anachronistic elements removed to restore it to its original glory. The historic body of the house will utilize the Residential State Historic Rehabilitation Tax Credit while a non-contributing addition was demolished to make way for an addition including a great room with exposed steel and reclaimed wood tread staircase leading to the master suite with vaulted ceilings and new double-hung wood windows. Greg Jeanfreau, FSJNA President, will speak on the benefits of Faubourg St. John becoming a Cultural and Historic District. Light refreshments provided. Donation bar.

5:30 – 7:00 p.m. at 2917 Ursulines Avenue, $10 / Free for PRC and JLNO members.

For more information: [email protected], 504.636.3399

Suzanne N. Blaum | Director of Education and Outreach | Preservation Resource Center

923 Tchoupitoulas St | New Orleans, LA  70130 |   (504) 636-3399

[email protected]

www.prcno.org

 

Filed Under: Featured Tagged With: bayou st john, faubourg st john, New Orleans, preservation, renovation, Ursulines

Brigands on the Bayou

July 16, 2013 by Charlie London

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Jimmy Fahrenholtz sent in this photo.

It’s not clear whether Jimmy is warning of an impending invasion or giving notice that he has arrived. In any case, watch the video below as you ponder the possible meanings of this flag flying on Ursulines Avenue.

Filed Under: More Great Posts! Tagged With: bayou, brigands, fahrenholtz, faubourg st john, jimmy, pirates, Ursulines

PORCH CRAWL 2013

June 14, 2013 by Charlie London

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james-andrews1photo by Charlie London

James Andrews and his friends entertained
the PORCH CRAWL crowd for hours.


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Allen Toussaint came by to visit with Jim Danner and all his Faubourg St. John neighbors for the 2013 Porch Crawl.

photo by Diane Angelico.





http://theadvocate.com/news/neworleans/communitynews/6224735-123/neighbors-sit-sip-for-porch

FUN IN FAUBOURG ST. JOHN
article by Roberta Grove
The Faubourg St. John Neighborhood Association recently hosted its third annual Porch Crawl fundraiser. Broad Street, Orleans Avenue, Carrollton Avenue and Onzaga Street at the Fair Grounds are the boundaries for the historic neighborhood, which was established in 1708.

The area’s lush tree-lined streets are home to more than 4,000 residents who are accustomed to hosting unique celebrations.

The recent Porch Crawl highlighted seven Faubourg St. John homes and their front porches.

Each home was paired with one of seven neighborhood restaurants. At each stop along the way, patrons sampled tastings from each establishment while sipping refreshing summer cocktails, provided by Glazer’s.

Before air conditioning existed, New Orleans neighborhood porches were popular gathering places for friends, family and neighbors to socialize, with relative comfort, during the warmer summer months.

Today, many porches still have furnishings and fans to make outdoor entertaining more enjoyable.

It is this local tradition that inspired the members of the Faubourg St. John neighborhood to embrace history while simultaneously raising funds to support FSJNA’s many community improvements.

Supporting that cause were Liuzzas by the Track, Pal’s Lounge, Fat Falafel Food Truck, Serendipity, Café Degas, Santa Fe Restaurant, Lola’s and Ralph’s on the Park.

Some locations featured entertainment, but most patrons eventually found their way over to 1100 block of North Gayoso Street to take in the sounds of jazz trumpeter James Andrews and his trio.

FSJNA’s Porch Crawl attracted more than 150 patrons to highlight one of our city’s most-beautiful neighborhoods.

The Crawl is the perfect way to get a feel for and appreciation of a great neighborhood so if you missed it, make sure to check out https://fsjna.org for the organization’s next party. Bastille Day is just around the corner, with a celebration planned July 13. See you there!

La Vie de Ville captures city life New Orleans style each Thursday in the Advocate New Orleans Community News Section. Please email information on your upcoming event to [email protected].

http://theadvocate.com/news/neworleans/communitynews/6224735-123/neighbors-sit-sip-for-porch
Glazer’s strong commitment to the community has been recognized since our founding in 1933. It’s our way of saying “thank you” for allowing us to be your neighbor. Each day, we strive to earn, build and maintain a positive relationship of trust in the community, creating a tradition of caring that has come to be known as “Glazer’s Community Partnerships.”

James Andrews played at Faubourg St. John’s
2013 PORCH CRAWL


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The PORCH CRAWL in Faubourg St. John is held annually under the majestic oaks on Ursulines Avenue. Join us next year!

photos below by Charlie London


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Filed Under: Featured Tagged With: adult beverages, alcohol, allen toussaint, bayou, bayou st john, best neighborhood in New Orleans, drinks, faubourg st john, fun, glazer, glazer's, james andrews, new orleans best neighborhood, party, Porch Crawl, Ursulines

Go Ride the Streetcar

June 1, 2013 by Charlie London


Riding the St. Charles streetcar down its historic line is a great opportunity to see different areas of New Orleans, including the mansion lined Garden District and oak tree canopied university area of Uptown. A single ride is $1.25, or purchase a day pass for $3for unlimited rides.

GoNOLA TV is a regular video segment on New Orleans food, music, shopping and nightlife. Visit http://www.gonola.com for all the best places to eat, drink, shop and play in New Orleans or head on over to http://www.neworleansonline.com and plan your vacation today!
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photos below by Charlie London (originally posted at FSJNAdotORG on May 24, 2012)

Upon returning from the May 10th BlightStat meeting, I had the opportunity to, once again, ride New Orleans’ fine public transportation.

Click on the map for a larger view

If you haven’t taken a ride on a New Orleans streetcar or bus lately you really are missing out.

The streetcar operator told me each one of these refurbished streetcars cost 1 million dollars!

Get a great view of New Orleans’ architecture. Take the bus or the streetcar!

Architectural Vignettes
New Orleans, with its richly mottled old buildings, its sly, sophisticated – sometimes almost disreputable – air, and its Hispanic-Gallic traditions, has more the flavor of an old European capital than an American city. Townhouses in the French Quarter, with their courtyards and carriageways, are thought by some scholars to be related on a small scale to certain Parisian “hotels” – princely urban residences of the 17th and 18th centuries. Visitors particularly remember the decorative cast-iron balconies that cover many of these townhouses like ornamental filigree cages.

European influence is also seen in the city’s famous above-ground cemeteries. The practice of interring people in large, richly adorned aboveground tombs dates from the period when New Orleans was under Spanish rule. These hugely popular “cities of the dead” have been and continue to be an item of great interest to visitors. Mark Twain, noting that New Orleanians did not have conventional below-ground burials, quipped that “few of the living complain and none of the other.”

One of the truly amazing aspects of New Orleans architecture is the sheer number of historic homes and buildings per square mile. Orleanians never seem to replace anything. Consider this: Uptown, the City’s largest historic district, has almost 11,000 buildings, 82 percent of which were built before 1935 – truly a “time warp.”

The spine of Uptown, and much of New Orleans, is the city’s grand residential showcase, St. Charles Avenue, which the novel A Confederacy of Dunces aptly describes: “The ancient oaks of St. Charles Avenue arched over the avenue like a canopy…St. Charles Avenue must be the loveliest place in the world. From time to time…passed the slowing rocking streetcars that seemed to be leisurely moving toward no special designations, following their route through the old mansions on either side…everything looked so calm, so prosperous.”

The streetcars in question, the St. Charles Avenue line, represent the nation’s only surviving historic streetcar system. All of its electric cars were manufactured by the Perley Thomas Company between 1922 and 1924 and are still in use. Hurricane Katrina flood waters caused severe damage to the steel tracks along the entire uptown and Carrollton route and had to be totally replaced and re-electrified. The cars themselves survived and are included in the National Register of Historic Places. New Orleanians revere them as a national treasure.

Creole cottages and shotgun houses dominate the scene in many New Orleans neighborhoods. Both have a murky ancestry. The Creole cottage, two rooms wide and two or more deep under a generous pitched roof with a front overhang or gallery, is thought to have evolved from various European and Caribbean forms.

The shotgun house is one room wide and two, three or four rooms deep, under a continuous gable roof. As legend has it, the name was suggested by the fact that because the rooms and doors line up, one can fire a shotgun through the house without hitting anything.

Some scholars have suggested that shotguns evolved from ancient African “long-houses,” built here by refugees from the Haitian Revolution, but no one really knows.

It is true that shotguns represent a distinctively Southern house type. They are also found in the form of plantation quarters houses. Unlike shotgun houses in much of the South, which are fairly plain, New Orleans shotguns fairly bristle with Victorian jigsaw ornament, especially prominent, florid brackets. Indeed, in many ways, New Orleans shotguns are as much a signature of the city as the French Quarter.

New Orleans’ architectural character is unlike that of any other American city. A delight to both natives and visitors, it presents such a variety that even after many years of study, one can still find things unique and undiscovered.

This material may be reproduced for editorial purposes of promoting New Orleans. Please attribute stories to New Orleans Metropolitan Convention and Visitors Bureau. 2020 St. Charles Avenue, New Orleans, LA 70130 504-566-5019. http://www.neworleanscvb.com/.

Filed Under: HISTORY, More Great Posts! Tagged With: bayou, bayou st john, best neighborhood in New Orleans, desoto, esplanade, faubourg st john, fleurty girl, fortier, fortin, grand route, historic, history, lopez, moss, New Orleans, new orleans best neighborhood, new orleans streetcar, park, parks, ponce de leon, preservation, recreation, rolling history, streetcars, trolley, Ursulines

Casket Girls

May 17, 2013 by Charlie London

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Dr. Charlotte Pipes is presenting a one-hour lecture on French Colonial Louisiana to the monthly meeting of the Genealogical Research Society of New Orleans.

Monday, May 20, 2013
Whitney Bank – Metairie Rd. branch
1441 Metairie Road
Metairie, Louisiana.
The meeting starts at 7:30pm and is free and open to the public.

The topic will be “A Casket Girl of New Orleans.”
Casket Girls arrived in New Orleans from France in the early 18th century.
They came here to become brides for Louisiana settlers.
Charlotte traveled to France (no, not to become a bride)
but to document exactly the process by which young women in France
signed contracts, boarded sailing ships and crossed the Atlantic to marry.

www.grsno.org

Filed Under: Featured, HISTORY Tagged With: bayou, bayou st john, best neighborhood in New Orleans, casket girls, Charlotte Pipes, faubourg st john, french, New Orleans, new orleans best neighborhood, Ursulines

Two Zoning Issues in Faubourg St. John

May 13, 2013 by Charlie London

by Greg Jeanfreau, Zoning Committee Chairman

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3127-PonceDeLeon
On Friday 5/10/13, I spent time at City Hall speaking with a staff member for the City Planning Commission. I was able to obtain the file for 3127 Ponce De Leon as it pertains to the BZA meeting on Monday 5/13/13. The parking waivers were approved last and the reason they are re-applying is that their building permits expired after a year and therefore they have to re-apply for the parking waiver. The staff is recommending approval. There is also some documentation of neighbor support.

What is most interesting is that on the second page of the staff report (and I confirmed this with the young lady I spoke with) there is a footnote stating that Ice Cream shops are considered “standard restaurant” uses similar to that of coffee shops. This has been the slippery slope fast food question regarding whether an ice cream shop would create a precedent for fast food chains to move into the neighborhood.

Therefore, my understanding is that this and/or Tutti Fruitti would not be considered fast food and would not set any sort of precedent. I mentioned the Tutti Fruitti location and the CPC staffer confirmed this was the case with that project also. If it were considered fast food, the project would have required variances and applying for a conditional use prior to obtaining their building permits as Fast Food is a different use with heavier requirements. Tutti Fruitti does have their permits, FYI.
3042-UrsulinesAve

Filed Under: Zoning Issues Tagged With: bayou, bayou st john, faubourg st john, New Orleans, ponce de leon, Ursulines, zoning

ATM Yanked from Store

November 15, 2012 by Charlie London

This article courtesy NOLA DEFENDER

ATM Jacked from Bayou St. John Store (VIDEO)

Posted
Thursday, November 15th, 2012

Two men headed to Soprano's Meat Market early Thursday morning to get some money out. But instead of using their card, they took the whole ATM. Video obtained by police shows a white truck back up to the store. The pair break into the store, located in the 2700 block of Ursulines Avenue, by attaching a chain from their truck to the front door.

 

One man then attaches a chain from the truck to the ATM, which is just inside the door. The other man then drives the truck forward, and the ATM comes out of the wall. 

 

The man then throws the ATM in the back of the truck and the truck drives off.

 

 

Police are looking for the two suspects, one of which was wearing a "boonie" style hat, according to police. The other man was waring a blue hooded sweatshirt.

 

Hopefully this doesn't end up like that Breaking Bad episode.

 

Citizens with information that can help solve this crime are asked to call CRIMESTOPPERS at 822-1111 or toll-free 1-877-903-STOP.  You could receive a cash reward of up to $1,000 for the information leading to the arrest and indictment of the responsible person(s). 

***

City of New Orleans Press Release

November 15, 2012

ATM Taken in Bayou St. John Business Burglary


Detectives are asking for the public’s assistance in identifying and locating possibly two or more unknown males wanted in connection with a Business Burglary. The incident occurred early this morning at Soprano’s Grocery Store in the 2700 block of Ursulines Avenue.

In surveillance video obtained by detectives, a truck is seen pulling into the parking lot and backing up to the front of the business. A chain attached to the truck is used to pull the front door open at which time the suspect enters the business and wraps the chain around the ATM. The truck pulls the ATM out of the store where the subject and driver are seen placing the ATM into the back of the truck. The subjects subsequently fled the scene.

One subject is described as a Caucasian male wearing a ‘boonie” style hat, a scarf and a black leather jacket.

The driver is described as a Caucasian male, wearing a blue hooded sweatshirt and black jeans with designs on the rear pockets.

Videos of the incident can be viewed at http://www.youtube.com/embed/06fWpUcwhOU and http://www.youtube.com/embed/iozmu8kmCyk.

The truck is described as having black rims, dark tinted windows and individual nerf bars below each door.

Citizens with information that can help solve this crime are asked to call CRIMESTOPPERS at 822-1111 or toll-free 1-877-903-STOP. You could receive a cash reward of up to $1,000 for the information leading to the arrest and indictment of the responsible person(s). You do not have to give your name nor testify to receive the reward. Citizens can also submit an anonymous tip online to Crimestoppers at www.crimestoppersgno.org

Any person who, after the commission of a felony, shall harbor, conceal, or aid the offender, knowing or having reasonable ground to believe that he has committed the felony, and with the intent that he may avoid or escape from arrest, trial, conviction, or punishment shall be charged with R.S. 14:25; Relative to Accessories After the Fact.

An accessory after the fact may be tried and punished, notwithstanding the fact that the principal felon may not have been arrested, tried, convicted, or amenable to justice.

Whoever becomes an accessory after the fact shall be fined not more than five hundred dollars, or imprisoned, with or without hard labor, for not more than five years, or both; provided that in no case shall his punishment be greater than one-half of the maximum provided by law for a principal offender.

The New Orleans Police Department, under the leadership of Superintendent Ronal W. Serpas, is engaged in a complete transformation in its approach to ensuring that New Orleans is a safer place to live, work and visit. The police force, which currently employs dedicated men and women, is committed to transparency, accountability, collaboration and integrity.

Filed Under: Featured Tagged With: atm, atm robbed, automatic teller machine, bayou st john, convenience store, faubourg st john, neighborhood, New Orleans, soprano, soprano's, soprano's grocery store, ursuline, Ursulines, ursulines avenue

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