City recreation officials will kick off a multi-day national conference on parks and recreation Sunday (Sept. 24) at the Lafitte Greenway, where they will also mark the expansion of the Greenway's Lemann Playground. The playground set at the base of the Greenway near North Claiborne Avenue netted around $1 million in donated equipment that crews have spent months installing ahead of the national conference.
Construction on new Lafitte Greenway bar slated for January
By: Claire Byun | November 13, 2017
Source: Mid-City Messenger | Full Article
A bicycle-friendly beer and wine garden on the Lafitte Greenway may start construction early next year, though the owners are still working on a name.
Crews have applied for construction permits with work hopefully starting in early January, developer Billy Good said.
The still-unnamed bar would have “adequate” vehicle parking and about 60 bicycle parking spots, plus a permeable outdoor patio – though live music is not planned for the venue. Site plans submitted to the city show space for an indoor bar and small mezzanine. Good said the outdoor patios will have 62 percent permeable space with trees, fire pits and heaters.
Read morenola.com: Boats, not bicycles once traveled the Lafitte Greenway
By: Richard Campanella, Cityscapes Columist | November 14, 2017
Source: Nola.com | Full Article
For decades, a weedy strip coursed through New Orleans’ historical heart, unnamed, underutilized and barely noticed except as a nuisance. All this changed two years ago, when the newly christened Lafitte Greenway opened new access to old neighborhoods and mended a gash in the urban fabric.
The linear movement of pedestrians and bicyclists on the Greenway today echoes that of vessels starting more than 220 years ago, at a time when New Orleans made some influential planning decisions.
Read moreMid City Messenger: Hagan-Lafitte drainage project adds rainwater storage under Easton Park, greenspace for stormwater runoff
By: Claire Byun | Midcitymessenger.com | November 8, 2017
A new drainage project meant to reduce flooding in the Hagan-Lafitte neighborhood is scheduled for next year. The project will replace outdated drainage pipes and add additional rainwater storage, while providing more greenspace for natural stormwater runoff.
Total construction will take 12 months, and crews should start March or April of next year. Green infrastructure is needed along the city’s lowest-lying areas to “complement” the drainage systems already in place, Charles Allen, resilience outreach manager, said.
Read more
New Orleans Advocate: Prospect Profile: Michel Varisco's art distills life on the Mississippi
By John D'Addario | Special to the Advocate
New Orleans artist Michel Varisco is one of 73 featured artists in the central component of this year’s Prospect.4 exhibition.
But the piece she’s creating will live long after the exhibition closes in January.
Varisco’s “Turning: prayer wheels for the Mississippi River” will be a permanent installation on the Lafitte Greenway, where Bayou St. John intersects with Jefferson Davis Parkway. It will be unveiled Nov. 18, during Prospect.4 opening weekend.
Source: New Orleans Advocate
Read more
New Orleans Magazine: "Prospect 4: The Lotus in Spite of the Swamp"
By: John R Kemp | myneworleans.com| November 2, 2017
New Orleans is a city that celebrates creative souls and its place in the American psyche. It revels in its own history, real and imagined, and thinks of itself as a place like none other in North America. The existentialist novelist Walker Percy once described the city, his adopted hometown, as an island “cut adrift not only from the South but from the rest of Louisiana, somewhat like Mont Saint-Michel awash at high tide.”
Percy’s New Orleans, with its graceful patina of age, cultural history, architecture and almost smothering humid floral landscape, is a natural open-air art gallery. With that in mind, Prospect New Orleans has launched this year’s international contemporary art triennial “Prospect.4: The Lotus in Spite of the Swamp.”
The citywide art show, which runs November 18 to February 25 and is free to the public, explores the city’s creative spirit in the visual and performing arts and its historical connections to Africa, the Caribbean and Europe. Billed as one the nation’s largest triennial art exhibitions, Prospect.4 features artwork by 73 local, national and international artists from 25 countries in North America, Latin America, the Caribbean, Africa, Asia, and Europe. New Orleans-area artists included in the Prospect.4 line up are Wayne Gonzales, Darryl Montana, Jennifer Odem, Quintron and Miss Pussycat, John T. Scott, Michel Varisco, Monique Verdin, and jazz legend Louis Armstrong. Yes, in addition to blowing a mean horn, Armstrong was also a talented visual artist.
Greenway Soirée moves trailside
By: Advocate Staff Report | October 25th, 2017 6:45 AM
The 2017 Greenway Soirée was the fifth for the Friends of Lafitte Greenway but the first to take place beside the 2.6-mile linear park, at the Cellar on St. Louis, 2500 St. Louis St. The Friends of Lafitte Greenway works to build program and promote the greenway as a great public space. For information about the nonprofit organization, visit lafittegreenway.org.
The 2017 Soirée featured musical entertainment by Brad Walker Quintet, David Batiste Sr. and the ReNEW Schools Turnaround Arts Choir, DJ George Ingmire, the Congo Square Preservation Society and DJ Jennifer Brady.
New Orleans City Councilmembers Susan G. Guidry and Ethan Ashley were honorary co-chairs of the 2017 Greenway Soirée.
Source: Advocate.com
Full Article: http://www.theadvocate.com/new_orleans/news/communities/crescent_city/article_24f61698-b44d-11e7-878e-3bafe60bfa3d.html
New Orleans Advocate: Greenway: On resurgent Lafitte corridor, an industrial relic gains new life
BY R. STEPHANIE BRUNO | Special to The Advocate AUG 26, 2017 - 6:45 AM
When the Morreale family built the Tulane Industrial Laundry back in the 1940s, the area surrounding the business at St. Louis and North Dorgenois streets was largely industrial and commercial.
The giant pumping station on North Broad and a Schwegmann’s supermarket anchored the area, where plumbing supply warehouses and auto repair shops mingled.
After 10 years of vacancy following Hurricane Katrina, the old laundry building is on the brink of a new life as a mixed-use development featuring commercial space on the ground floor and 12 apartments above, thanks to a multimillion-dollar project by GCE Green Development.
Source: The New Orleans Advocate
Full Story: http://www.theadvocate.com/new_orleans/entertainment_life/home_garden/article_df8024bc-8802-11e7-b6bb-7b235f1f0035.html
NOLA.com: Pavilion could replace brake tag station on Lafitte Greenway
Mid-City residents living along the Lafitte Greenway got a preview of what changes could be in store for an old, dilapidated brake tag station near Lafitte Avenue and North Lopez Street. City officials are kicking around designs to turn the brake tag station into an open-air, multi-use pavilion space - though plans for what the building will ultimately be haven't been set in stone yet.
At a meeting held Wednesday evening (Aug. 23), architects with the firm Spackman Mossop and Michaels pitched their preliminary design that would mostly keep the shell of the brake tag station intact. Changes to the roughly 12,000 square-foot structure would include outfitting one side of the building with "rolling"-style doors, putting in new public restrooms, rebuilding the flat roof, installing new skylights, electrical and plumbing utilities, and laying a wooden deck across the "bioswale" lying between the building and the greenway's walking path.
Source: NOLA.com
Full Article: http://www.nola.com/politics/index.ssf/2017/08/lafitte_greenway_brake_tag_sta.html
NRPA: Creating a Vibrant Public Space on the Lafitte Greenway
By
By Paula Jacoby-Garrett
Since 2008, the NRPA community has been spreading the message of the transformative value of parks by annually creating a park, or revitalizing an existing park, in an area of need through its Park Build Community initiative. Location s of the parks correspond to NRPA's annual conference locations. This year's Parks Build Community project will enhance the portion of the Lafitte Greenway, located in New Orleans, Louisiana.
Source: NRPA
Full Article: http://edition.pagesuite.com/html5/reader/production/default.aspx?pubname=&edid=bba44a63-221e-4433-a050-8d4b12543545&pnum=48