I met Alan from Think New Orleans today at the destruction of Coliseum Square Baptist Church. While we were talking, he asked Maitri and me if any of us here at New Orleans MetBlog have blogged about the Festival of Neighborhoods that will be going down tomorow. I told him that Heather had indeed written about it, and his response was: “Blog harder.” So, not to belittle Heather or her post, but, here goes:

The Festival takes place tomorrow (Saturday) from 10am – 4pm at the City Park Botanical Gardens. It is a chance for people from all over the New Orleans area to get together to show off and compare their neighborhood’s plans to rebuild. People from different Neighborhood organizations will be able to compare notes and get some new ideas. The rebuilding of New Orleans is and will be largely a grass roots effort. This is a great centralized event where the public can find out what has been going on over the past 9 months and where things are moving. There will be food, drinks, and live music. And of course, admission is free.

While you’re at the Festival of Neighborhoods, go check out the Mid-City Art Market, which features some great local and regional artists and their works – everything from Glass-work, to Pottery, to Photography, to Paintings. The art market will be right next to the Festival of Neighborhoods at the Botanical Gardens.

On a side note, it was good to finally meet fellow Metblogger, Maitri today. That’s one down and the rest of you folks to go. Any chance of meeting any of you tomorow?

I am a huge Harry Shearer fan. Those unfamiliar with his work might want to check out http://www.harryshearer.com/. It is a somewhat well known fact that Shearer is a part time New Orleans resident and has a place in the French Quarter. He is also involved with various groups that are helping to chart the future of our city.

He also keeps a very New Orleans-centric blog at the Huffington Post. It’s a great read.

Reader Jernst submitted this story via the Suggest a Story link. Habitat for Humanity is teaming up with CoinStar to build new homes for people who lost there houses during Katrina: Making Change For Katrina. The idea is simple, people anywhere in the country can bring their spare change to a CoinStar machine (those green machines in many grocery stores) and instead of converting their change to paper dollars, they con choose to donate it. The small amounts of change can add up to something very big. But why am I rambling on, I think Hans put it very well, himself:

How much spare change is sitting in your pocket?

As a new hurricane season begins, tens of thousands of Katrina victims still have no permanent homes while an estimated $10 billion in idle coins sits in sock drawers, coat pockets and jars across America.

I wanted to call your attention to a new initiative “Making Change for Katrina” that has recently been launched to help replace over 1,000 homes lost or damaged in last year’s hurricanes. The surprising simplicity of the idea, the country’s first coin crusade to transform spare change into homes, makes for a compelling story, while the potential results of the effort will help make a difference in so many lives. If just one percent of the idle change in the U.S. is collected, that $100 million will be enough to build 1,200 homes.

On June 28, in partnership with Habitat for Humanity, the Making Change for Katrina mobile bus tour will kick off in Boston and make its way to nine communities across the country. At each stop, volunteers will construct the frame of a house for delivery to pre-approved Habitat families in the Gulf.

So, spread the word: donate your pocket change.

A lot has been done all day long to stop the demolition of the front tower. Stacy Head, councilwoman from District B, Banks McClintock, a member of the board of the Coliseum Square Neighborhood Association and John Bose, private structural engineer, tried their best to work with city officials, the owners of the church and the people of Coliseum Square to achieve a consensus. Almost everyone agreed that the tower can and should be saved.

At 2PM, unfortunately, the city produced a consultant structural engineer who said that every professional who looked at the place was wrong and that the tower will come down in winds greater than 75mph.

The city hath spoken. Gioe’s will bring down the oldest baptist church in the south (1854) and the Lower Garden District will only drop further in historical value.

As of this writing, the rectory at the extreme back of the church has been completely removed with a backhoe. Now, a wrecking ball works on bringing down the church wall on the downtown side. Needless to say, bricks everywhere. Also, the mainstream media finally showed up around 2:30pm and began interviewing the lot of us who have been there since the beginning of the day. So far, my favorite has been Kaare Johnson of WWL radio who cares greatly about historic preservation in this already crumbling city.

What bothers me is the ruthless efficiency between fire and demolition. Nothing works this quickly in New Orleans. Everyone I talk to about this is surprised at the quick turnaround on getting the church down. Arson or not, the real crime here is that the building was left to dilapidate over two years, despite pleas from the neighborhood association to revitalize it lest it should be destroyed through utter neglect. Today, we witness that worst case scenario. What, I ask you, is New Orleans without its history?

Related story on the Halpern building at 1508 St. Charles

• Maitri’s Picture Gallery Of Demolition
• Post 1 on this topic: Calling All Area Preservationists To The Coliseum Place Baptist Church
• Post 2: Update From Coliseum Place Baptist Church
• Post 3: Coliseum Place Baptist Church: The Saga Continues

I have a bit of a pet-peeve about people who get into minor fender-benders and then sit there blocking traffic until the police come. This is going on right now on Metairie Road down the street from my neighborhood. A woman in a Jaguar (blond, but I don’t think it’s natural) apparently misjudged the length of the front end of her car while trying to pull out of the Discount Zone. Another woman driving a Honda down Metairie Road clipped the front end of the Jag. Very minor, didn’t even see any damage to the Honda. Both women walking around talking on cell phones.

They are now standing in the street with the Honda blocking traffic on narrow Metairie Road, which is already notoriously backed up every day. I told them it would be OK to get the Honda out of the road, but the blond said, “oh, no, not until the police get here.” Well, if they are coming from Metairie, it’s going to take quite a while with all the traffic that is now backed up.

I guess people think that when you have a minor car accident the police want you to preserve the scene of the crime until CSI can get there and dust for fingerprints, take photographs and talk to the witnesses. Well, that ain’t gonna happen. Unless someone has caused the accident by breaking the law, the police are only there to write an official accident report so you can send it to your insurance company. Let Dangerblond clear this up for you. After any car accident, the participants are free to move their cars out of the way of traffic, unless 1) There is a death or an injury requiring medical attention, or 2) The car in the road is not drivable or pushable. In other words, believe it or not, your minor car accident does not require the complete cessation of traffic and commerce in the immediate area. The police are getting really good at this accident investigation thing and they can tell by looking at the skid-marks and the damage to the vehicles exactly what happened without you even telling them. They do not need for the earth to stop revolving on its axis while you wait for them to get there.

The bricks are hitting the fan in the Lower Garden District. After its innards went up in flames early yesterday morning, the Coliseum Place Baptist Church was slated for demolition beginning 7AM today. As of this writing, the demo experts have been stalled by neighborhood preservationists, including a neighbor of mine jumping into the church for a while, who demand that at least the tower be preserved.

In the process of taking pictures about an hour ago, I befriended John Bose, area structural engineer, who suggests that the tower may remain intact if the rest of the building is taken down. However, the “owners” want no part of it.

Amid an offer to buy the place, journalists and city officials about to show up and general chaos over the building, nothing’s happening. Come on out and watch, maybe participate, in the proceedings. Here’s a chance for some real citizen participation in preserving one of the Lower Garden District’s and Louisiana’s historic gems.

• Maitri’s Picture Gallery Of Demolition
• Post 1 on this topic: Calling All Area Preservationists To The Coliseum Place Baptist Church
• Post 2: Update From Coliseum Place Baptist Church
• Post 3: Coliseum Place Baptist Church: The Saga Continues

Tuesday, I attended the NONPAC meeting at the first district police station. Captain Colin spoke about the influx of youth into the city. The department and city officials had anticipated a rise in crime with a sudden shift in the population when the kids got out of schools in other cities and came back to New Orleans. In the week of June 4-10th the first district had 3 persons crimes, meaning assault, robbery, etc. In the following week, they had 8 persons crimes. Four of those resulted in arrests, they were, as they say, cleared. We had 16 auto thefts, which is way up, over double. In addition to the big central-city slaughter, there are some hot spots on Uruquart and a high digit block of St. Ann that the department is focusing on at this time. With all the vacant property, the places for dealers to hide their inventory is endless.

The National Guard is here so that our police can deal with this recent shift. It is interesting to note that right now, we are seeing the guard back AND the refrigerators are back. The prediction that there would be this summer wave of returnees who can finally deal with their clean-up in earnest was correct. The police department is stressing the need to address the fact that kids are at risk because they need to get involved with constructive activities and there were some people from a couple neighborhood organizations who are starting programs in their neighborhoods to give kids things to do.
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Editor B, from rox.com has an interesting documentary, “From New Orleans to the Midwest,” on his site. It is about a few Katrina evacuees who ended up in the Bloomington, IN area and the efforts made by the city of Bloomington to aide people from New Orleans. Editor B contributed footage for the film. The footage that he contributed includes some scenes from ROX #93, as well as some new interviews with himself and his wife. The film was made by students of the Indiana University.

It’s a different perspective on some of the things that have been going on in all of our lives over the past 10 months. While parts of it may not be as interesting to those of us who are not from Indiana, it is still worth a look.

Historic Church Burns Down In Lower Garden District

Sleep has been elusive lately, but it is apparent that I was knocked out enough last night to have missed the action in my very own neighborhood. “A total of 82 firefighter and 27 units” fought a fire that “reduced Coliseum Place Baptist Church, at 1376 Camp St. to ruins.”

I’ve called to check on friends who live at 1356 Camp and haven’t heard back. My immediate neighborhood’s landmarks are vanishing one by one. First 1233 Coliseum, now 1376 Camp. Andrew Jackson Elementary School next door at 1400 Camp sits vacant. Hmmmm …

Rest in peace, Coliseum Place Baptist.

It’s good to see these guys around town again. And yes, there are regular NOPD and those visiting state troopers everywhere in the populated areas. Overall, it feels like a good thing. I also feel like this is a test to see if Nagin can get what he asks for when he asks for it.