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Wednesday, December 14, 2016

Please let's not normalize "New Marigny"

Realtors do not get to play Columbus with your neighborhoods. Especially when they're trying to "re-imagine" them in such a way that nobody actually lives in them anymore. 
A developer's vision for what he termed a "gateway to the New Marigny" was dealt a setback Tuesday, when city planners approved his proposal for a hotel on St. Bernard Avenue but called for limitations on its height and total floor area that the developer said would undercut the project's economics.

The project needs a conditional-use permit, which requires City Council approval, because it involves more than 10,000 square feet.
As real estate marketing gimmicks go, "New Marigny" is among the more blatant. It not only implies, wealthy transients and transplants are discovering neighborhoods and remaking them in their own image, it practically yells it at you.  The least we can do when we write about this propaganda is to actually recognize it as such.  Instead our "view from nowhere" style buys right into it. 
Calvin Lain is president of Devalepay Inc., which owns the triangular-shaped property at 1201-1219 St. Bernard Ave., in the area sometimes known as New Marigny. The site now includes a car wash, billboard and warehouse, which would be torn down.
"Sometimes known as."  Um.. who calls it that sometimes? 

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