b.rox

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 [...]

We had about 16 trick-or-treaters pass by our home in Mid-City tonight, up from ten last year and zero the year before that.

Xy doesn’t always get into holiday traditions, so I was surprised when she brought home four pumpkins last week. She attached notes to three of them saying they were from “the Great Pumpkin” and had me deliver them to three young neighbor kids. Those pumpkins have since been successfully carved into jack-o’-lanterns.
Last night I [...]

Have I mentioned Lamar? He’s Justin’s younger brother. He’s about 13 but you might guess he’s ten. A sweet kid, but I worry about him.
He reminds me of myself at his age, kind of quiet and a little bit shy. I was very quiet and painfully shy.
I found refuge in books, and I’ve tried to [...]

This summer FEMA scaled back the amount they’d pay the Army Corps of Engineers for debris removal, meaning the City of New Orleans would have to pick up more of the tab. The City said they couldn’t afford it, so it would fall on the private citizen. Predictably, however, most people didn’t get the memo. [...]

It seems that painting trim and windows is a lot more time-consuming and a lot less fun than painting the walls. I spent all day yesterday and today and I’m almost done. I’m working on the largest room in our house, the utility room. I prepped three weekends ago, did the ceiling two weekends ago, [...]

I administer an online discussion group for my neighborhood. With 432 members at last count, it’s been fairly successful, and we do our best to promote it as a higher-quality alternative to the notorious nola.com forums.
However, there’s always room for improvement. After toying with the idea for months, I decided to try an experiment in [...]

I was hanging out with the neighbors across the street one evening, about a month ago. I was mostly talking to this older gentleman, a guy about 80, nicknamed Easy. We were sharing some Crown Royal and talking about all manner of things.
But as I was talking to Easy, I overheard a conversation amongst some [...]

I noticed this sign on a house around the corner.

“For rent — Section 8/FEMA only.”
That seems discriminatory. Is this legal?

Yesterday morning, between the hours of 9:00 AM and noon, someone came into our backyard and took a crap.
Yup. The mysterious intruder moved a plank of wood and a cat dish into strategic position and took a big old dump. Then, apparently, he or she wiped his or her ass with some torn up sheet [...]

I didn’t know Nia Robertson. And now I never will.

Nia was killed at Pal’s Lounge Wednesday night. I first heard about it through Think New Orleans and Metroblogging. Then the story was on the front page of today’s paper.
It’s a sad fact that violent crimes and murders happen on an almost daily basis here. Mostly [...]

From an anonymous Mid-City neighbor:

At a Night out against crime gathering tonight an NOPD officer was asked by a neighbor… Why didn’t the police come out when I called after being woken up by a house alarm at 3am? The officer’s reply… “Call and say there is a naked woman on your porch.” He proceeded [...]