The SELA endgame

Soooon. Very soon. But not yet.

A month-long partial closure of the busy Uptown intersection of Magazine Street and Louisiana Avenue is set to begin Thursday (July 5), according to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The closure figures in the continuing construction of a drainage canal on Louisiana Avenue amid the Corps' years-long Southeast Louisiana Urban Flood Control project, or SELA.

Starting Thursday, traffic on Magazine heading downtown toward Louisiana will have to detour before reaching the intersection. Traffic on Magazine heading Uptown toward Louisiana will be able to pass through the intersection without detour. Two-way traffic on Louisiana will not be affected, the Corps says.

They are saying this is going to be finished by the end of the year at which point it might be possible to move about Uptown relative freely again.

Meanwhile, the latest update I can find about plans to finish the landscaping on Napoleon Avenue is from 2016. 

The exact plan of the landscaping cannot be drawn until the construction is absolutely complete, and Boh Brothers has submitted their own “as-built” specifications of the exact location of each new underground utility line, Wagner noted.


“I’d hate to put an oak tree on top of a new city line,” Wagner said.

Aiming for the spring planting season in 2017 is also somewhat complicated by Mardi Gras, he noted, as the crowds on Napoleon Avenue likely be harmful to newly-planted landscaping.

So, anyway, that never happened. Halfway through 2018 now and no one has planted even the first crepe myrtle out there.  Maybe that's out of the plan now? 

The prohibitionist reflex

From time to time people try to explain to me what is about neighborhood associations and their aversion to liquor licenses. I don't think I'll ever understand it.

The restaurant needs a conditional-use permit from the city — which includes alcohol sales — in order to open on Magazine Street, so the owners held their required Neighborhood Participation Plan meeting May 21. Addressing some of the neighbors’ concerns, the owners said they were looking into the possibility of valet parking, although services such as Lyft and Uber have reduced parking needs.

Some neighbors were also concerned about permanently adding alcohol sales to the building, in the event that the restaurant does not remain at the location.

“We are very concerned about these unanswered questions and others and reiterate our opposition the concern and our opposition to the liquor license being for the building, and not for your specific business,” nearby neighbor Donald Maginnis wrote in a letter a week after the meeting.

Anyway, they're turning Jim Russell Records into a ramen restaurant. Maybe. 

S&WB may have found the deduct box

This announcement is a bit sudden.

Two busy blocks of Magazine Street — between Second and Fourth streets along the Garden District and Irish Channel — will close for excavation Friday “until further notice,” the Sewerage and Water Board of New Orleans announced.


Both the 2500 and 2600 blocks of Magazine will be closed in both directions, as will the intersection of Third Street that runs between them, the announcement states. Traffic will be detoured around the area, the notice states.

“The Sewerage and Water Board will be excavating the street for an assessment of underground infrastructure,” the release states. 

What do they think is under there?

Keeping it poper

I spotted this sign in the window at the Balcony Bar on Magazine Street yesterday. It has several interesting features.



The bar itself has undergone a significant transformation over the past year or so. They've taken all of the pool tables out and added some booths. Another sign in this window says they're now closing at 10:00 PM (!) on Fridays and Saturdays which seems incredibly strange to me. So much so, in fact, that I need to go check on this in person.

Anyway that little stretch of Magazine is constantly re-inventing itself.  In recent years the most notable change has been the Rue De La Course and the Puccino's coffee shops on either side of the street have become restaurants.  The coffee houses tended to stay open late. The restaurants don't. The Bulldog and the Rendezvous are still open nearby, of course. But the crowd each caters to is.. well, they don't have to be too anxious about im-poper attire very often.

None of this is particularly important except that this used to be a corner where a person could spend a lazy afternoon-on-into-evening with a few cups of coffee and then cheap domestics among an.. um.. eclectic sort of crowd.  That is probably still possible to some degree but less so now.

The rent is too damn high

Now that Stacy Head has moved on to citywide office, those old "Faubourg Stacy" bumper stickers you used to see Uptown are a bit out of date.  May do well to switch over to Faubourg Khodr

The transformation of Magazine Street continues as the 16-year old Rocky’s Pizzeria in the 3200 block closed July 16. Hicham Khodr, owner of Byblos, is under contract to purchase the building from Alvin Wexler LLC. Khodr said he expects to close on the contract next month and possibly open another pizzeria.

The value of the building, 3222 Magazine St., is listed at $343,200 on the Orleans Parish Assessor’s Office website, though it is expected to sell for more than $1 million.

Khodr, who now owns six properties on Magazine Street, is moving Byblos into the old Nacho Mama’s location and opening an upscale taqueria where Byblos has operated since 2001.

If he buys one more of the red properties I think he can start putting up hotels. 

Going the wrong way?

They're thinking of making the one-way section of Magazine Street between Calliope and St. Andrew into a two-way.

At Councilwoman Stacy Head’s request, the city’s Department of Public Works conducted an initial study of converting Magazine to two-way traffic from Calliope to St. Andrew. The project would involve changing traffic signals, signs and road striping — in addition to a six-month trial period — for a total cost of approximately $100,000.

My only complaint about the way it's currently engineered is I have to make two extra right turns in order to get to Surrey's. That doesn't seem like a big deal but, if I'm going to Surrey's, I'm probably too hungover to be driving in the first place so I could use all the help I can get.

Last year while Magazine was being resurfaced, I remember seeing Pat argue more than once that, if anything, the city should be going the other direction here and extending the one-way throughout the Uptown business corridor presumably creating a "complete streets" haven of diagonal parking and bike racks made out of candy canes or something.

One thing we do know is that the two-way Magazine Street above St. Andrew is one of the most dangerous stretches of road for cyclists, pedestrians, and motorists in the whole city. Okay well we don't know that without the statistics but there sure do seem to be a lot of accidents there. Anyway, that was probably on the mind of at least some of the folks at this meeting.

Both sides of the debate claimed safety concerns as the rationale for their decision. Proponents said that two-way traffic generally flows more slowly than one-way, so it would lower speeds of passing motorists, in addition to eliminating crashes from drivers inadvertently heading the wrong way. Opponents countered that the move would increase traffic overall, crowding out pedestrians and bicyclists.

But what's probably going on is people interested in lower Magazine real estate believe two way traffic is good for business. I mean, I figure it might help idiots like me get to Surrey's faster anyway. Plus it's hard to argue with house flipper Stacy Head's noted eye for real estate opportunities.

Pilates and Pinkberrys

It's the new coffee-gelatto-sushi on Magazine Street these days. I suppose for the sake of symmetry we can throw Walgreens into that mix. It's increasingly difficult to cover a single block and not encounter at least one of those six entities.

Anyway in the future we'll also have signage announcing when more of them are on the way. So we'll look forward to that.

The Wilhelm Schnitzel Fallacy

Actually I read this three times and I still don't know what it means.

If he can get the zoning changed, Stover’s adjusted plan calls for running a Japanese grocery store as well as a coffee shop in the building, which is owned by his boss at Hana’s. This entrepreneurial vision has its Facebook fans, but has not been met with smiles by neighborhood groups.

Curmudgeons, in Stover’s view, they oppose his plans not because they have anything against coffee – PJ’s coffee shop founder Phyllis Jordan stood up at the meeting to speak against Stover’s plan – but, typically, because they see spot zoning as a slippery slope.

You allow one variance and the next thing you know, everyone wants one.

That’s the thinking Stover tagged as the Wilhelm Schnitzel Fallacy, a reference esoteric enough to snap Planning Commission members out of their mid-afternoon reverie and start some meeting goers googling on their PDA’s.

To little avail. While the “content-free” Uncyclopedia contains a satirical reference to Wilhelm Schnitzel in a long burst of frat house humor involving Kaiser Wilhelm, the Fallacy goes unexplained.

Clearly, more serious detective work was in order.

Reached by phone, Stover offered no apologies and at least a partial explanation of Schnitzel’s Fallacy:

“I come from comedy and I wanted to make the point, so I just came up with an absurd name,” he said.

And the point, exactly? The fallacy? That spot zoning doesn’t have to open the door on a million similar requests, Stover explained.

If I understand even a little of this properly, and I'm not sure I do, the Wilhelm Schnitzel Fallacy can describe any theory the person citing it wants to claim is too stupid to merit an opposing argument. I actually like this tool and hope to apply it to all sorts of crap in the future. Take HBO's Treme, for instance. Please. (Ha! See what I did there?)

Anyway, the real reason I bring this up is I notice this proposed business is apparently some sort of Japanese-grocery-coffee shop. A few years back, we expressed our concern that every new business opening on Magazine Street appeared to be of either the coffee bar, gelateria, or sushi restaurant variety. It was only a matter of time before they began to merge. The only surprise is that it's happening on Carrollton. Of course Magazine is all about Pinkberry and Pilates these days so the trend is set anew.

Nomadic coffee

Rue de La Course had already hopped across Magazine to its current location a few years ago.* Now its owners want to put their restaurant there instead. Is the coffee shop moving, or just closing? Does this mean Magazine Street has finally passed peak coffee?

*Yes, I think of Rue's pre-Katrina move from what is now the Rum House as "a few years ago" Yes, I'm getting old.

Submerged roads program

Funny the number of un-submerged streets that program is upgrading. Not that it's a bad thing altogether. Some stretches of Magazine Street could use the work. Although the thing that could benefit it the most would probably be figuring a way to jam fewer cars onto such a narrow road at all hours but that's not going to happen. At least they aren't trying to add a bike lane.

Oh and this might bear watching.

Residents concerned about the fate of the blue-and-white street tiles were told the tiles would be removed and reset.

The track record on this isn't good. Not in the case of the various street repair projects I've noticed. Even in highly publicized cases, the process can take a great deal of time.

This is a funny town in a lot of ways

This morning I drove by here and there was a line around the freaking block.

NFL Opens First Shop For Women In New Orleans

The NFL has done its homework and is giving the first NFL Shop for Women a try here in New Orleans. But it's a test marketing venture, so the shop won't be here for long.

NFL female employees model their favorite Saints clothes at the new boutique style NFL Saints Shop for women. The store can dress you, head to toe in black and gold.

"New Orleans has such a passionate and robust female fan base, we thought this was a perfect place to test our new concept," said Tracey Bleczinski, NFL Vice President of Customer Marketing and Sales.

I understand the hot item of the morning was a Who Dat^TM hair frosting product but patrons were disappointed to learn that Jeremey Shockey had pre-ordered most of the stock last week. Shockey, spotted later ducking out of Pinkberry, refused to answer any questions.

House of Fail

I'll have to see about giving this a try soon... before it goes under like everything else in that location ever does.

At least these people have a fall-back plan.

Krantz said the Magazine location features 15 tables for lunch and dinner crowds, up from five tables at the Metairie location, but filling all the seats has been a challenge.

“It’s been slow, but I think everybody’s pretty much slow right now,” she said. “We had a nice established business going in Metairie, so it’s really tough losing that right now.”

Once the insurance claims from the fire are settled, Krantz said she hopes to return to Metairie.

If they turn it into another boutique dress shop I'll burn it down

Tee-Eva’s Looking for New Location

Of course, we can't rule out the possibility of even more gelatto, sushi, or coffee either.

Murder on the Magazine Street Express

From the looks of things, the Puccino's on Magazine and Ninth appears to have shut down. Which one of these other coffee houses within walking distance on the same street could have put them out of business?

Was it:

The Starbucks four blocks away?

The CC's three blocks away?

The Rue across the street?

Or was it.... all of them? (eerie music)

I certainly hope that now someone will have the good sense to open another sushi restaurant in that building.

Aw who am I kidding? We all know it will be a PJ's

Redundant and Repetitive

No I'm not talking about Mayor Nagin's questionable characterization of City Council inquiries into the workings of his administration. Instead I am referring to the eerie phenomenon which has Magazine Street denizens suffering a "browbeating" from a succession of "redundant" businesses. I referred to this a few weeks ago when Table 1 closed. But now that it's going to reopen as the THIRD SUSHI JOINT ON THE SAME BLOCK, that old line between sublime and ridiculous has just been trampled across. Really. What the hell is going on over there?

Out with the new in with the newer

Table 1, the Hicham Khodr operation at Washington and Magazine which opened right after the storm, is already shutting down. It will be revamped to offer "everyday affordable and takeout-friendly dining."

Judging by what's been going on on Magazine Street lately, I'd guess it would have to reopen as a Quizno's. Yes there is already a Quizno's directly across the street, but putting another at the Table 1 site would be in keeping with the current pattern of opening a sushi place right across from a sushi place.. which is right next door to a gelateria.. which is two doors down from a gelateria.. which is just across the street from a coffee shop.. a block over from a coffee shop.. across from another coffee shop.. next door to a nail salon.. across the street from a nail salon... all of which is interspersed with day spas.. and more coffee. Okay so you get the point.

Head Kegger

And you were beginning to think there was nothing to do this evening.

Magazine Street block reopened
Posted by The Times Picayune August 17, 2007 11:50AM

By Leslie Williams

Staff writer

The more than two-year-long blockade of a section of New Orleans' Magazine Street has ended. Traffic began flowing again in the 1300 block of the commercial hub on Thursday.

"Thank you, Jesus!," said Gee Mercadel, the owner of Sophie's Gelato, one of several businesses that atrophied after the normally heavily traveled portion of the street was closed to vehicular traffic at Melpomene Street. "It's the prettiest part of Magazine and it finally is going to get a chance to live again."

"I'm so excited," said City Councilwoman Stacy Head, who credited "the hard work of a lot of different departments working together to get this done."

In celebration of the victory, Head is throwing a keg party today at 5:30 p.m. at the Bridge Lounge, 1201 Magazine St.

Work on the closed section of the street has been at a standstill since about May 2005, when the owners of two buildings, one on each side of the street, got a court to issue stop-work orders. They said their properties had been seriously damaged by a Sewerage & Water Board contractor digging up the street to install a culvert.

The city had kept the street closed to traffic since then because of fears that the damaged buildings might collapse, posing a danger to the public.

I wonder if she'll complain about anyone leaving the party with an open container.

Dystopia No More

Magazine Street is free!

See reports from this bizarre 3-year saga on the New Orleans Metblog here here and here. Also more details in an earlier post from Blake.

Almost forgot the official Liberate Lower Magazine site where there is much more. (Thanks, Leigh)

Champagne and fireworks are in order.. no doubt.

Party at the Dystopia

No I'm not talking about some cheesy Bourbon street nightclub but rather the lede to the latest Laureen Lentz report on the Magazine Street clousure.

Heart of Darkness Block Party: This Saturday, Jan. 27th, 2pm. At the Magazine/ Melpomene Road Closure.

Come show your support for getting Magazine St. open, support for the people who live there . . . or come for the craziness

More on the Magazine Street Dystopia

See Humid Haney