Salcedo – Page 2

Ladies and gentlemen, I’d like to present a temporary art installation which I like to call “A Tribute to America.” On trash day, if we’re lucky, the garbage truck comes around and the collectors dump our cans in the truck and leave them lying on the street. There they stay all day until I come […]

Taisha is a young girl who lives across the street from us. She and her mother moved in a few weeks ago. Before that she used to attend the school where Xy teaches in Algiers, though they didn’t know each other there. Last Friday Taisha’s older brother was gunned down in Central City. This incident […]

This morning I noticed an old white guy standing across the street. He wasn’t doing anything, just standing there looking at the house across the street from ours. I remembered seeing him there yesterday morning too. When I carried my bike down to the street, I said hi and we talked for a while. He […]

OK, this is a little gross, but it’s also kind of funny. Don’t look if you’re extremely squeamish.

Yesterday, as I was cooking dinner, I heard the beat of drums outside our house. I recognized that sound immediately and knew what it meant: Warren Easton marches again! It’s probably the coolest thing about living on my block. The high school marching band comes down our street almost every school day. Or rather, they […]

If you walk around my block you will see… Flooded homes. Some have been completely renovated, some are currently being renovated, some have been gutted and stand vacant, some appear not to have been touched since the flood. I’d say fewer than half are occupied. Cajun V&T Grocery. You know the one. It hasn’t been […]

The Times-Picayune publishes their tenth story about us this morning.

Well, the good news is the postal system around here may be getting better. This letter was posted on Monday and arrived at our house on Tuesday: The bad news is it’s nothing nice. It’s a D&C letter from a lawyer on behalf of the landlord across the street, related to — you guessed it […]

Ever had the feeling that all the pieces are coming together — but none of them fit? Like maybe some wiseacre at the factory mixed together a bunch of different puzzles as a prank? Yeah, me too. I stopped by Michael’s house after work yesterday to talk with Roy Bragg of the San Antonio Express-News. […]

Today Xy and I hosted a baby shower for one of our new neighbors. She and most of the guests are Honduran. It might seem ironic, hosting a baby shower, given what happened Wednesday, but actually Xy offered to host the event before she even knew she was pregnant. The event itself was interesting. It’s […]

I haven’t seen our new neighbor Ashley since I talked to him a couple weeks ago. But I met another young African-American man living in that same building, right across the street from us. His name is Damien. He was hanging out on the sidewalk on our side of the street with Ovi, a young […]

Michael and I were walking down my street the other night after a neighborhood meeting (there are meetings every night) and we came upon three young African-American men, hanging out by a parked car with the stereo cranked. A year ago this wouldn’t have been unusual, but very few black residents have returned to my […]

I was just panhandled in front of my house, by a guy from the neighborhood who’s been working on the house across the street. This was a not infrequent occurence in antediluvian days, but this marks the first time it’s happened since the storm. He asked for $2.00. I gave him a buck fifty. I […]

Best news I heard yesterday: People are finally starting to move into the trailer site a block from our house. The trailers have been sitting there empty for three months now. Hopefully we will have a couple hundred neighbors soon. Of course, this could create a whole host of new problems…

As they continue demolishing it, Physicians Hospital is now wide open. I walked in and took some pictures. Man, it’s spooky in there. Added twenty-odd pix to the continuing photoset.

If it’s not one thing it’s another. There’s a slight plumbing problem at the house two doors down. It looks like the landlord is trying to get it fixed, but the result is a giant hole in the sidewalk full of raw sewage. Update — Tuesday, April 11th: I called the Sewerage & Water Board, […]

When Xy came home from work yesterday, she saw a man on the street who gave her a “nasty look.” He was headed between our house and the next. Xy entered our front door; I was at the opposite end of our long hallway; she told me to look out back. I went out the […]

A few weeks ago I posted about a big demolition project which had begun just a block from our house, and how they tried to stop me from taking pictures. Thought I’d post a follow-up. The site, on the 3100 block of Canal Street (downtown side), is the Physicians Hospital complex, which old-timers know as […]

Six months after the storm. People are taking stock. Me too. I’d describe my mood as one of tightly bridled optimism. I’m not sure if that puts me in the minority or the majority. There’s all kinds of polls flying around, mostly worthless because the Katrina diaspora and the lack of functioning landlines in New […]

We woke up this morning to the sound of major demolition. Sure enough, they’re tearing down Physicians Hospital, just like we heard they would. I don’t mourn the passage of these buildings too much. They were in pretty sad shape pre-Katrina, abandoned for years. I’m not sure if they were salvageable. My boss and I […]

Tag: Salcedo

Tribute to America

Murder Hits Home

Man on the Street

Street Scrape

Warren Easton Marches Again

My Block

Story X

Cease & Desist

Drama on North Salcedo

Fiesta de Bebe

Mellow, Laidback Beats and Deep Thoughts

Ashley

Panhandled

Trailers

Spooky

Sewerage

Intruder Alert

Demolition Follow-Up

Katrina + Six

Teardown