6/02/2007 Community Gumbo

Listen | Democracy Now (5/29/07)

• War Made Easy: How Presidents & Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death

Listen | Bari Landry: North Rampart Street's Revival

The National Trust for Historic Preservation has designated North Rampart Street as one of its designated Main Streets eligible for economic revitalization grants. Bari Landry is the Manager of North Rampart Main Street.

Related:

North Rampart Main Street

National Trust Main Street Center

Broadway South push centered in Legislature

Listen | Robert McClintock: The Alliance of Guardian Angels Establishes Residency in New Orleans

Robert McClintock is the West Coast Regional Director of the Alliance of Guardian Angels. He has established residency in New Orleans to open a regional office and help with crime abatement. Curtis Sliwa formed the Guardian Angels to patrol crime-ridden neigbhorhoods of Brooklyn almost thirty years ago. (Note that the added sound effects were added thanks to a thunderstorm that snuck up during recording). Full audio download.

Related:

The Alliance of Guardian Angels

The Guardian Angels' Mission: To safeguard neighborhoods, schools, and cyberspace from crime and violence, through partnerships with educators, corporations, and community leaders, via programs that heighten risk awareness, foster character development, provide peaceful solutions, and empower individuals, especially our youth, to lead positive, productive, contributing lives.

The Guardian Angels is now recruiting New Orleanians to join the organization.

New Orleans contact:
Robert McClintock
347-582-4777
redstring1_ga at yahoo dot com

Listen | Lauren Anderson: Neighborhood Housing Services Hosts the 10th Freret Street Festival & Home Ownership Fair

As the Director of Neighborhood Housing Services, Lauren Anderson has been a tireless advocate of, and facilitator for, homeownership as a path to wealth creation and economic development. Neighborhood Housing Services is hosting the 10th annual Freret Street Festival today.

Related:

Neighborhood Housing Services

Freret Street Festival and Homeownership Fair

Leslie Williams, "Little-known program can turn renters into owners," The Times-Picayune, 5/30/07.

Announcements:

Symphony Book Fair
Jewish Community Center, 5342 St. Charles Ave. Symphony Volunteers Inc. present the 54th annual event to benefit the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra with more than 100,000 books in every category, sold 9 a.m.-9 Sun.-Tues. Sunday admission is $10, free thereafter. Call 319-8106.

Historic New Orleans Collection
Williams Gallery, 533 Royal St. "Four Hundred Years of French Presence in Louisiana: Treasures from the National Library of France," ends today. Hours are 9:30 a.m.-4:30 Tues.-Sat., 10:30 a.m.-4:30 Sun. Free. Call 523-4662.

Music Played:

Mark Bingham with Micheal Skinkus, "The Mardi Gras Raven" (poem by R. Moose Jackson, Dirge for the Deluge, Piety Street Recording, 2006 (available at The Sound Cafe, 2400 Chartres Street).

Troy "Trombone Shorty" Andrews & Orleans Avenue, "We Gonna Make You," Orleans Avenue, Treme Records, 2005.

5/26/2007 Community Gumbo

Listen | Democracy Now (5/25/07)

• "Somebody Had to Speak Out. If Not Me, Who?" - Maj. Gen. John Batiste Fired by CBS News for Anti-Iraq War 'Advocacy'

Anthony Tung: Preserving the World's Great Cities
Listen | Part 1, Venice
Listen | Part 2, Warsaw

Anthony Tung as been a New York City Landmarks Preservation Commissioner, an instructor on architectural history at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and a visiting professor on international urban preservation at MIT. He has lectured around the world on historic preservation. Preserving the World's Great Cities (Three Rivers Press, 2001) is a detailed socio-cultural portrait of preservation efforts in eighteen cities across the globe and throughout history. He was recently invited by the Louisiana Landmarks Society to speak in New Orleans. Excerpted from that lecture are Anthony Tung's comments on the rebuilding of Venice after the 1966 flood, and Warsaw, after it was leveled by the Nazis in WWII.

Related:



Louisiana Landmarks Society

Announcements:

Greek Fest NOLA
Holy Trinity Cathedral
1200 Robert E. Lee Blvd.
Saturday, May 26 — 11:00 AM to 11:00 PM
Sunday, May 27 — 11:00 AM to 9:00 PM

Mid-City Bayou Boogaloo

The 2nd Annual Bayou Boogaloo
Saturday, May 26

New Orleans String Project Crawfish Boil
Saturday, May 26, 12-5
Burke Park (Annunciation between 2nd and 3rd Streets)

Music Played:

Pete Seeger, "Army Life," American Favorite Ballads, 4, Smithsonian Folkways Recordings, 2006.

John Fahey, "Amazing Grace."

5/19/2007 Community Gumbo

Democracy Now (5/16/07)

• Studs Terkel At 95: “Ordinary People Are Capable of Doing Extraordinary Things, and That’s What It’s All About. They Must Count!”

Jerilyn Perine: Lessons for New Orleans in the Renaissance of New York's Blighted Neighborhoods

On May 17th, the New Orleans City Council voted to grant New Orleans Redevelopment Authority (NORA) limited legal authority to seize abandoned or blighted property without court approval. Its members appointed by Mayor Nagin, NORA has been criticized for its inability to move 1500 pre-Katrina blighted properties off of its rolls and into the hands of private owners who would develop them. Meanwhile, NORA officials recently enacted a hiring freeze because it’s so starved for cash.

In coming months, NORA will enter into an adjudication process perhaps tens of thousands of blighted, once-flooded properties. At the same time, Mayor Nagin’s appointed recovery director, Ed Blakely, is saying that NORA will lead the New Orleans rebuilding effort, placing NORA in charge of overseeing a $1 billion plan to invest in 17 targeted redevelopment areas.

The challenges to successfully stimulating a renaissance of rebuilding which will bring back the most devastated areas of New Orleans is daunting. Fortunately, there are models of success.

The Harlem neighborhood of New York City, for example, was a crime-ridden neighborhood of dilapidated tenement buildings. Now, it’s one of the most-celebrated, vibrant communities in the city.

One of the people who led that remarkable transformation was Jerilyn Perine, a former commissioner of the New York City Department of Housing, Preservation, and Development. Over a span a quarter century, Ms. Perine and her colleagues pioneered the development of public-private-community partnerships to invest billions of dollars in tens of thousands of blighted buildings. At the same time, she fought for the right to affordable housing for working class New Yorkers.

At the start of the process, the outlook for New York was as bleak as it appears for New Orleans. And yet, now, land which the New York City once couldn’t give away is viewed by private developers as worth investing in. In no small part, the work of Ms. Perine and her colleagues led the renaissance of New York City.

Jerilyn Perine is now the Executive Director, Citizens Housing and Planning Council of New York. She was invited by the Rockefeller Foundation to speak in New Orleans.


Related:

Frank Donze, "NORA granted 'quick take' power," The Times-Picayune, 5/18/05.

Gordon Russell, "Blighted Hope," The Times-Picayune, 5/06/07.

Frank Donze, "Agency Tackles a Handful of Properties," The Times-Picayune, 5/06/07.

Frank Donze, "Recovery financing strategy falls flat," The Times-Picayune, 5/11/07.

Stephanie Grace, "NORA inherits a mess," 5/20/07.

"Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg Announces the Resignation of Housing Preseravation & Development Commissioner Jerilyn Perine," Press Release, 1/12/04.

About CHCP.

Amy Waldman, "Homes and Shops to Rise on Abandoned Harlem Properties," New York Times, 12/27/00.

Jerilyn Perine, "Eminent Domain is a Tool, Not a Conspiracy," Gotham Gazette, 12/12/05.

Susan Fainstein, "Eminent Domain Benefits Developers, Not the Public," Gotham Gazette, 12/12/05.

Michael Cooper, "City Is Selling Symbol of Its Troubled Schools," New York Times, 7/09/03.

Amilda Dymi, "Creating a ‘Common Ground’ in NYC," National Mortgage News.

"Cities Exchange: International Brownfields Exchange," Waterfronttrail.org.

Brad Lander, "Eminent Domain: What The Supreme Court Ruling Means To NYC," Gotham Gazette, 7/12/05.

Mark Berkey-Gerard, "42nd Street," Gotham Gazette, 8/29/05.

Daniel Goldstein, "Life in the Atlantic Yards Footprint," Gotham Gazette, 12/09/05.

Gus Garcia-Roberts, "The Battle Over the Iron Triangle," Gotham Gazette, 12/09/05.

Joshua Brustein, "Columbia Expansion and Eminent Domain," Gotham Gazette, 12/09/05.

Mark Berkey-Gerard, "Eminent Domain Revisited," Gotham Gazette, 12/12/05.

Announcements:



Big Easy Rollergirls, New Orleans' only all-female, flat-track roller derby league, hosts the Memphis Roller Derby on Saturday, May 19 at Blaine Kern's Mardi Gras World in Algiers Point. The doors open at 6 PM, the action starts @ 7PM.

5/12/2007 Community Gumbo

Democracy Now (4/30/07)

• Fighting Fascism: The Americans - Women and Men - Who Fought In the Spanish Civil War
• Abraham Lincoln Brigade "Represents an Important Part of the American Soul" - Harry Belafonte Pays Tribute to U.S. Vets Who Fought Fascism in Spain

Young Prophetz Poetry Slam


Shelton Alexander, © Andy Richter. More photos.
Audio:

Shelton Alexander opens the poetry slam
"Q" Querido Arias
Chris Williams
Sunni Patterson
Sheldon introduces youth poets
Evander
Latrelle
Deuce
Awards
Tulane students introduction
Jose Maldonado
Feminist
Observer
No title
My mother
Xavier
Love you mom
Close & last poet

Music Played:

Billy Bragg & Wilco, "All You Fascists" (Woody Guthrie), Mermaid Avenue II.
Billy Bragg, "Help Save the Youth of America", Billy Bragg Box Set Vol. 1.

Announcements:

Final Review and Public Comments on the City-Wide Recovery Plan

The plan can be viewed and downloaded at
http://unifiedneworleansplan.com

(French Quarter, CBD, Lafayette Square and Warehouse District are called District 1. This hearing is particularly about the “city-wide” version.)

Opportunities for your input:

May 15, 2007
1:30 PM
City Council Chambers
1300 Perdido Street

May 22, 2007
3:00 PM
City Council Chambers
1300 Perdido Street

NOTE: They are hoping to receive the testimony/comments on May 15,
with the vote occurring after normal CPC hearing on May 22.
However, if you can only testify on May 22, you will be allowed to do so.

A printed copy of the city-wide plan is available for review at the City Planning Commission office, City Hall, Room 9W03, 1300 Perdido Street, New Orleans .

For more information, please contact City Planning at 658-7000.

5/05/2007 Community Gumbo

No broadcast due to a Tulane electricity outage.