b.rox

Here’s an excerpt from the 1st District Crime Activity Report for July 20, 2008, reproduced verbatim and without editorial comment:

Type: Theft
Location: Dumaine and North Rocheblave
Gist: The victim stated that at 6:15pm, she received a response to an ad that she had in the newspaper for a puppy. The victim met an unknown black male in [...]

It would have been nice if this big old house could have been preserved. It would have been nice if someone had taken responsibility for this property and not allowed it to further deteriorate and become a haven for vagrants and a (perceived) threat to the residents across the street.

Instead, we get another empty lot. [...]

OK, so those were gunshots I heard Thursday morning. I got the direction wrong, though. Here’s the relevant excerpt from the 1st District Crime Activity Report for June 26, 2008, reproduced verbatim and without editorial comment:

Type: Automobile Burglary
Location: 3200 block of Bienville
Gist: At 2:225am, the victim was awakened by loud noises outside the residence. Upon [...]

I heard gunfire early this morning, about 2:30 AM. A dozen shots. It sounded like it was coming from around the corner, the 3100 block of Iberville.
I wish I could say it was the first time I’ve ever heard such sounds in the night in our neighborhood. Unfortunately it’s a sound I hear far too [...]

One of the most frequent questions I field as a new dad are various inquiries into my sleep patterns. People seem mystified or nonplussed when I assert that I have never slept better in my life. It’s not a joke, though. Xy feeds the girl at night and usually sleeps in her room as a [...]

Sometimes it’s worth it. All the trouble, the endless meetings, the grant proposals, the paperwork, navigating bureaucracies, building consensus, wrangling volunteers, the phone calls, the e-mails, did I mention the meetings?
I started the Mid-City sign project last year, when I was serving as Communications Director for the Mid-City Neighborhood Organization. We wrote a grant to [...]

I came outside today to find Johnny and some other kids throwing rocks at our next door neighbor’s house. Our next door neighbor (Craig) decided to stay in Texas after his Katrina evacuation. The weeds in his yard are now eight feet tall. I have some issues with Craig, obviously, but I didn’t think Johnny [...]

An ad just played on TV for an upcoming news report on the decline of baseball as a popular sport amongst African-Americans.
Just a couple minutes later, there are three kids (all African-American) playing catch on the street in front of our house, each with a mitt.
What makes this even weirder is that the kids around [...]

It was a beautiful day, so we packed some picnic snacks, loaded up the baby stroller, gathered up some neighbor kids and headed down to the bayou for Super Sunday.

Only Super Sunday wasn’t quite as super as I remembered. Don’t get me wrong, we had a great time. And the Indians we saw were absolutely [...]

Keep N It Real Social & Pleasure Club was in our neighborhood today. It ended just two blocks from our house. Actually we missed the parade, but we caught these fabulous DIVAS (acronym for something but I forget what) just as things were breaking up.

We took our first stroll around the block yesterday.

Many of the sidewalks are impassable, so we had to push the stroller in the street. On Iberville I saw a renovation underway; they were sanding, with clouds of lead-based paint dust going everywhere. (I’ll be placing a call to the city’s Department of Environmental Health tomorrow [...]

Kalypso surveys her street and finds 70% of the houses are uninhabited.

As Ashley noted, Victory got their permit to demolish the Lindy Boggs hospital (formerly known as Mercy).
This was decided by the Housing Conservation District Review Committee at a meeting that took place on the last day of the year, December 31st. Alan was there and provides a comprehensive account of just how dysfunctional the meeting [...]

Story on the front page of today’s paper confirms what I wrote in November.

The Housing Conservation District Review Committee met on Monday. They voted to allow the demolition of three public housing complexes, and passed the buck on a fourth. These decisions dominated the local news.
But there were some other items on the HCDRC’s agenda. I wrote about the ongoing dispute between my neighborhood organization and Victory Real [...]

Normally neighborhood groups support the demolition of abandoned buildings. However, last Monday representatives from the Mid-City Neighborhood Organization spoke against the demolition of the old Lindy Boggs Medical Center.

Reaction has been mixed. Here’s a typical comment from the story on nola.com:

Great, a bunch of boneheads that want to look important attempt to stop the demolition [...]

Xy wanted to give some trinkets to the neighbor kids this holiday season, so she had one of the girls compile a list.

Tomanique
Shawn’ae
Shawniah
Shawnique
Jurr’ieon
Jurr’eall
Melqueisha
Amy
Tyesha
Joshua
Zykeith
La Aarea
Keira
Lamar
Justin
Cheveniqua

Ages range from one to fifteen, and three-quarters of the kids are girls. I was surprised by the sheer number of kids on our little block, though a significant chunk of the [...]

Here’s a note I sent to my neighborhood discussion group.

Neighbors,
After much soul-searching I have decided that I will not be seeking another term on the board of the Mid-City Neighborhood Organization. This is purely for personal reasons: My wife and I are expecting a child in early March (if the Good Lord is willing!) and [...]

Old Roy came over to borrow a shovel today. He owns the house across the street, which he’s still repairing from flood damage lo these many months. Roy just turned 90 last week. I don’t know what I’ll be doing in fifty years, but borrowing a shovel at his age is pretty impressive.
What’s not so [...]

To the relief of everyone Uptown, Endymion is coming back to Mid-City in 2008. Therefore I imagine we’ll be having our annual Samedi Gras party, where you can experience a totally different side of Endymion, far from the madding crowds of Upper Mid-City. Hopefully our renovation will be complete by then. The question is, what [...]