New Orleanians probably don’t know what a Falstaff beer tastes like, but they know where it was once made. For 60 years, an iconic, 11-story Falstaff sign has topped the brewer’s one-time home in the Mid-City area. Now, three decades after Falstaff shuttered its New Orleans operation, the former brewery has helped turn around its depleted surroundings in its new role as residences.
(via Historic New Orleans Brewery Hopping Again as Apartments - Past Lives - Curbed National)
The New Republic ran a disparaging piece questioning the progress that Make It Right has made over the last five years, and MIR Executive Director Tom Darden responded with his own strongly worded rebuttal, calling The New Republicpiece by Lydia DePillis a “flawed and inaccurate account” of their work. Taken together, the two articles provide some compelling insight into the nature of the project and, more broadly speaking, the benefits and detriments of large-scale building projects in disaster-stricken cities.
Katey Red is the unlikely godmother of bounce music. Katey, a trans rapper who stands over six feet tall and has a penchant for miniskirts, got her start in bounce in the late ’90s, as she explains in this Avant/Garde Diaries video, which itself is rooted in the beat of bounce. ”I gets up, I start beating on the wall. I started saying stuff. … And I just let it rip. I ain’t never stopped.”
Though I had come to New Orleans for more mainstream purposes, I carved out some time to tour Vietnamese New Orleans. Though I did need a car – the Vietnamese communities are concentrated across the Mississippi River on the Westbank (outside New Orleans proper) and down Chef Menteur Highway along Lake Pontchartrain – there were few other major expenses. Vietnamese New Orleans, it turned out, is even more budget-friendly than the rest of the city.
This ran months ago, but is a very good story by Nathaniel Rich, from the NYT Magazine.
Eggs Benedict with poached eggs, black pepper buttermilk biscuits, tasso, boudin and charred chili hollandaise from SoBou
On December 5, 1933, the federal government gave up trying to keep America sober. Today, on the anniversary of Prohibition’s repeal, when New Orleanians reach for a bottle they’ll have a new option: Toulouse Red absinthe. Mid-City’s Atelier Vie distillery finally received federal approval for the sale of its first absinthe.
(via Mid-City’s Atelier Vie distillery releases red absinthe | NOLA.com)
One of the people behind this is a New Orleans pal from a ways back, excited that this is happening!
New Orleans officials are cracking down on hurricane-themed tours, saying buses damage newly paved streets and cross the line into disaster voyeurism. After years of loosely enforcing a ban on motor coaches in the Lower Ninth, the police are turning back tours and fined one company $150.
It has been a balancing act for a city that depends on nine million tourists a year, many curious to see the recovery firsthand. But seven years later, patience is wearing thin.
The city of New Orleans today launched a new online blight-map called blightStatus. The site allows you to search by address, street name or browse a citywide blight map by month and filter your results by date and most recent enforcement actions, allowing you to track, say, demolitions month by month. The site was developed in partnership with Code for America.
via City launches interactive blight map | Blog of New Orleans)
Bacon-infused bourbon might sound a tad over the top, but the aromatic concoction is one of the most requested recipes at Restaurant August, John Besh’s fine dining spot in New Orleans. And for good reason. “The bacon really brings out a lot of the smoky, woodsy flavor of the bourbon,” says General Manager Jeff Gulotta. Fortunately, unlike some of August’s fruit-based infusions, this one is both easy to make and unaffected by the seasons. “Bacon is year round, thank goodness,” Gulotta jokes.
Links etc. related to places, and contemporary notions of place, that are of interest to Rob Walker, author of Letters From New Orleans and co-founder of The Hypothetical Development Organization.
See also: Rob Walker blog on Design Observer.
