b.rox

They’ve finally started work on the house next door to ours, which has been an eyesore for years. They’ve decided to renovate rather than demolish. If they demolished, they probably wouldn’t be able to rebuild according to modern codes and zoning, because of the extremely small lot.

First step: Remove the contents from the upstairs rooms [...]

Xy came home from visiting with a friend yesterday evening to discover that our block was a crime scene. Police had the street blocked off and they were taking photos on the sidewalk, practically right in front of our house. Fearing that I might have been the victim, she parked on a side street and [...]

Here it is eight days later, and my head is still stuck in Easter Sunday.
I keep thinking back to a conversation I had with Debra.
Debra lives across the street. She’s a single mother raising children in difficult circumstances. Her oldest son was murdered in Central City last October. She doesn’t make much money working her [...]

I was really disturbed to read this post on the nola.com forums:

4028. woman on Karre Johnsons show
by nolafurby, 4/6/07 1:18 ET
YOU ARE AN IDIOT AND PROBABLY A BIG BIMBO! You should be on your knees thanking the LORD that ANYONE wants to invest in that area. You can’t even defend your side. For all of [...]

The other weird thing about the yard work we did on Easter Sunday is that a lot of it wasn’t really in our yard at all. We’ve started taking care of our next door neighbor’s yard. Craig is not coming back to New Orleans. He’s built a new house in Texas. Meanwhile, his house here [...]

Easter Sunday. Xy and I spend the day engaged in yard work. Our “yard” is about 4′ x 12′ between the sidewalk in front of our house and the street. Obviously you don’t need a riding lawnmower to take care of this.

Despite the incredibly small size of our yard, we’ve never had to cut it [...]

The neighbors across the street had a birthday party for their three-year old daughter yesterday. It brought a touch of color and festivity to our neighborhood which remains about 75% uninhabited.

We gave the little girl a fiver. Later in the day they sent over some plates full of good home-cooked food: pork chops, jambalaya, pasta [...]

Black and white kids playing together at the statue of Jose Marti on Jefferson Davis Parkway.

Click to enlarge.

It is truly humbling to serve as a vessel for community outrage.
The speech I gave Thursday — that wasn’t me. That was y’all. I was just channeling.
I had a double duty that weighed heavily on me. I spoke on behalf of the Mid-City Neighborhood Organization, and also as a friend of Helen Hill’s. I felt [...]

I wanted to write something cheerful for the end of the year. I certainly didn’t want to cite another story from the newspaper about killing in my neighborhood. But I can’t help it. The details surrounding this incident are just too compelling.
A little background: La Finca is a restaurant/bar that used to be on Tulane [...]

3319-21 Iberville Street [map]

This building has been proposed for demolition by FEMA. Since it’s in a historic district (Mid-City, my neighborhood) FEMA is “requesting the aid of the public in identifying alternatives to demolition.”
But how can we provide any such suggestions if we don’t know why the owner has requested demolition? The house appears to [...]

Ladies and gentlemen, I’d like to present a temporary art installation which I like to call “A Tribute to America.”

On trash day, if we’re lucky, the garbage truck comes around and the collectors dump our cans in the truck and leave them lying on the street. There they stay all day until I come home [...]

Taisha is a young girl who lives across the street from us. She and her mother moved in a few weeks ago. Before that she used to attend the school where Xy teaches in Algiers, though they didn’t know each other there.

Last Friday Taisha’s older brother was gunned down in Central City.

This incident merited four [...]

This morning I noticed an old white guy standing across the street. He wasn’t doing anything, just standing there looking at the house across the street from ours. I remembered seeing him there yesterday morning too.
When I carried my bike down to the street, I said hi and we talked for a while. He said [...]

Yesterday, as I was cooking dinner, I heard the beat of drums outside our house. I recognized that sound immediately and knew what it meant: Warren Easton marches again!
It’s probably the coolest thing about living on my block. The high school marching band comes down our street almost every school day. Or rather, they did, [...]

If you walk around my block you will see…

Flooded homes. Some have been completely renovated, some are currently being renovated, some have been gutted and stand vacant, some appear not to have been touched since the flood. I’d say fewer than half are occupied.
Cajun V&T Grocery. You know the one. It hasn’t been touched since [...]

I was on the local news last night — top of the ten o’clock hour.

They pegged it to Nagin’s 100+3 day press conference, citing his quip about commercial blight, and then seguing to our rodent-infested grocery.
They shot the interview with me yesterday afternoon. The camera operator (who bravely ventured into the grocery) turns out to [...]

Kalypso’s new movie is out. Watch it and get a look at New Orleans one year after Katrina through the eyes of an eleven year old girl. Well done, Kalypso. I’m proud to be your friend and neighbor.

This is a draft of a letter I’m planning to send to Paul Curcuru of Metairie.

Dear Mr. Curcuru,
I am writing to you because I believe you are the owner of the property at 3126 BIENVILLE, according to the Orleans Parish Assessor’s Office.
To be more precise, I am attempting to contact the owner of the “Cajun [...]

I overheard a fellow patron at the neighborhood laundromat saying to the proprietor:
If there were five 400 pound women that’d be all right with me.
I have no idea what he meant. I don’t want to know. I love a good non-sequitir.