New Orleans' Bohemian Outsider “Gypsy Lou” – 1955, co-founder of Loujon Press, which published Miller's Order and chaos chez Hans Reichel in 1966.
Of course the New Orleans people are extremely hospitable [...]. It is the most congenial city in America that I know of and it is due in large part, I believe, to the fact that here at last on this bleak continent the sensual pleasures assume the importance they deserve. It is the only city in America where, after a lingering meal accompanied by a good wine and good talk, one can stroll at random through the French Quarter and feel like a civilized human being.
(The Air-Conditioned Nightmare, pp. 126-127)
I saw in Louisiana a live-oak growing,
All alone stood it and the moss hung down from the branches,
Without any companion it grew there uttering joyous leaves of dark green,
And its look, rude, unbending, lusty, made me think of myself,
But I wondered how it could utter joyous leaves standing alone there without
its friend near, for I knew I could not,
And I broke off a twig with a certain number of leaves upon it, and twined
around it a little moss,
And brought it away, and I have placed it in sight, in my room,
It is not needed to remind me as of my own dear friends,
(For I believe lately I think of little else than of them,)
Yet it remains to me a curious token, it makes me think of manly love;
For all that, and though the live-oak glistens there in Louisiana solitary in
a wide flat space,
Uttering joyous leaves all its life without a friend a lover near,
I know very well I could not.
In 1956 construction began on National Bank of Commerce Tulane Avenue branch near Jefferson Davis Parkway.
Architects Curtis and Davis designed the office building with ample natural light for the 7300 SF of office space on each of the six floors. The cantilevered zig zag entrance canopy provided minimal ornamentation to an otherwise simplistic facade.
Construction was completed in 1958 by R.P. Farnsworth and Company.
[source: Times-Picayune, 05-16-1956, 10-17-1958]
On September 17, 2009 the New Orleans City Council voted to overturn the NCDC decision to deny a demolition permit for Hoffman Elementary School, 2622 S. Prieur Street. Councilwoman Stacy Head expressed regret regarding ordering the demolition of a historic structure. [At the hearing] representatives of the Recovery School District verbally promised to move the Hoffman site up to phase two, and possibly phase one if they can secure the financing. It is tragic that the RSD outright refuses to renovate this structure. The building assessment in the School Facilities Master Plan indicated that it would cost $2.2 million LESS to renovate Hoffman, but they would prefer to start over.
