Signs of Recovery in New Orleans

The Times Picayune reported, this morning, the following signs of recovery in New Orleans. I did find it refreshing to read this article since there is usually a lot of negative press regarding the city.

Evidence of recovery can be seen all over the metro New Orleans area. Those signs brighten our mood and show that we are on the mend. We'll be watching for these harbingers of rebirth and taking note of some of them every week.


-- The Lower 9th Ward, which lost its public library in Katrina, has a new library branch, located in the Martin Luther King Jr. Charter School for Science and Technology. The library has received sizable donations of books, computers and money to rebuild its collection.

-- Lakeview neutral grounds are being brought back to life by residents and hundreds of volunteers who've tackled numerous replanting projects. Al Petrie and Glenn Stoudt with the Lakeview Civic Improvement Association and Connie Uddo, director of the homecoming center for St. Paul's Episcopal Church, have been coordinating the ongoing work.

-- The St. Thomas Community Health Center has opened a coffee shop and community meeting rooms on lower Magazine Street to provide a gathering place for people. Tambourine and Fan, the Treme-based group that teaches young people entrepreneurship, is running the coffee shop.

-- The New Orleans Police 5th District, one of the last district stations still housed in trailers, is getting a new home at the former Universal Furniture Store on St. Claude Avenue, according to the Police Association of New Orleans. Construction, which PANO says will take about a month, will begin shortly.

-- Nursery-rhyme mosaics that deck the walkway of Edward Hynes Elementary School won't be destroyed in the building's demolition. Neighbors and former students of the Lakeview school persuaded the Orleans Parish School Board to save them, and they'll be featured at the new Hynes school.

-- Enthusiastic crowds turned out for Art for Arts' Sake, particularly on Magazine Street.

-- Tulane University has enrolled 215 undergraduate transfer students for the fall semester, a university record.

-- Slidell's First United Methodist Church has reopened its Pumpkin Patch for the first time since Hurricane Katrina.