About My Fathers Business, Rebuilding in New Orleans Post-Katrina

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Daniel Victory founded the bar in , shortly after being named one of GQ magazine's top five bartenders of the year. The acclaim certainly helped light a fire under his business.

Victory Bar

He had been working at the New Orleans Ritz-Carlton when Katrina hit, which shut the hotel bar down for three years. During that time he traveled around the country, sold cars, and did construction. The bar makes signature drinks with roots in New Orleans culture, like the Gin Fiz, Hurricane, and Sazerac, which may have been the United States' first cocktail, allegedly created by a former slave turned apothecary.

It's crazy the way things worked out. For Barrett Wiley, Katrina and its aftermath was a defining moment. And, certainly, cleaning up the flood damage and mold in his Gentilly Parish home helped lead him to the idea for his company, which offers cleaning services to large commercial spaces in New Orleans.

He didn't like the smell and feel of industrial cleaning products, so he decided to market a business that used green and sustainable cleansers instead. Wiley says he thinks New Orleans could have done more to help its small businesses in the immediate aftermath of the storm. Specifically, money earmarked for rebuilding should have gone to more local contractors, Wiley says.

And he fears some areas may never recover.

A recent college graduate, she was on the road working for the University of New Orleans sports department. The department heads asked her to try to raise some money for the school to get it up and going again after the storm. And she comes by her business honestly. Her father was in the restaurant business, too, selling jambalaya pots and specially engineered outdoor cookers for regional specialties, including to famous chefs such as Paul Prudhomme. He just didn't see that what went into the pots could be as big a business, Preau says, adding that her recipes had been cooked for generations by both her mother's and father's families.

It took a few years for her to get her seasonings company going. She started out by selling her blend to local grocery stores, one shelf at a time. In the local parlance downtown means "downriver from Canal Street", while uptown means "upriver from Canal Street". However, the Warehouse and the Central Business District are frequently called "Downtown" as a specific region, as in the Downtown Development District. Other major districts within the city include Bayou St. New Orleans is world-famous for its abundance of architectural styles that reflect the city's multicultural heritage. Though New Orleans possesses numerous structures of national architectural significance, it is equally, if not more, revered for its enormous, largely intact even post-Katrina historic built environment.

Twenty National Register Historic Districts have been established, and fourteen local historic districts aid in preservation. Additionally, both the National Park Service , via the National Register of Historic Places , and the HDLC have landmarked individual buildings, many of which lie outside the boundaries of existing historic districts. Housing styles include the shotgun house and the bungalow style. Creole cottages and townhouses, notable for their large courtyards and intricate iron balconies, line the streets of the French Quarter.

American townhouses, double-gallery houses, and Raised Center-Hall Cottages are notable. Charles Avenue is famed for its large antebellum homes. New Orleans is also noted for its large, European-style Catholic cemeteries. For much of its history, New Orleans' skyline displayed only low- and mid- rise structures.

The soft soils are susceptible to subsidence, and there was doubt about the feasibility of constructing high rises. Developments in engineering throughout the twentieth century eventually made it possible to build sturdy foundations to underlie high rises. One Shell Square became the city's tallest building in The oil boom of the s and early s redefined New Orleans' skyline with the development of the Poydras Street corridor.

The average precipitation is New Orleans experiences snowfall only on rare occasions. A small amount of snow fell during the Christmas Eve Snowstorm and again on Christmas December 25 when a combination of rain, sleet, and snow fell on the city, leaving some bridges icy.

Snow fell again on December 22, , when most of the city received 1—2 inches 2. Hurricanes pose a severe threat to the area, and the city is particularly at risk because of its low elevation, because it is surrounded by water from the north, east, and south and because of Louisiana's sinking coast. New Orleans has always had to consider the risk of hurricanes, but the risks are dramatically greater today due to coastal erosion from human interference. Following Hurricane Katrina, the Army Corps of Engineers has instituted massive levee repair and hurricane protection measures to protect the city.

In , Louisiana voters overwhelmingly adopted an amendment to the state's constitution to dedicate all revenues from off-shore drilling to restore Louisiana's eroding coast line. According to a study by the National Academy of Engineering and the National Research Council , levees and floodwalls surrounding New Orleans—no matter how large or sturdy—cannot provide absolute protection against overtopping or failure in extreme events.

Levees and floodwalls should be viewed as a way to reduce risks from hurricanes and storm surges, not as measures that completely eliminate risk. For structures in hazardous areas and residents who do not relocate, the committee recommended major floodproofing measures—such as elevating the first floor of buildings to at least the year flood level. Historical Population Figures [56] [90] [91]. According to the Census , , people and , households lived in New Orleans. Its racial and ethnic makeup was People of Hispanic or Latino origin made up 5. The last population estimate before Hurricane Katrina was ,, as of July 1, Postal Service figures, found that in August , just over , households received mail.

A study by researchers at Tulane University and the University of California, Berkeley determined that as many as 10, to 14, undocumented immigrants , many from Mexico , resided in New Orleans. In June , one study stated that the Hispanic population had risen from 15,, pre-Katrina, to over 50, As of [update] , New Orleans' colonial history of French and Spanish settlement generated a strong Roman Catholic tradition.

Catholic missions ministered to slaves and free people of color and established schools for them. In addition, many late 19th and early 20th century European immigrants, such as the Irish, some Germans, and Italians were Catholic. Within the Archdiocese which includes not only the city but the surrounding Parishes as well , The fame of voodoo practitioner Marie Laveau contributed to this, as did New Orleans' Caribbean cultural influences.

Jewish settlers, primarily Sephardim , settled in New Orleans from the early nineteenth century. Some migrated from the communities established in the colonial years in Charleston, South Carolina and Savannah, Georgia. The merchant Abraham Cohen Labatt helped found the first Jewish congregation in New Orleans in the s, which became known as the Portuguese Jewish Nefutzot Yehudah congregation he and some other members were Sephardic Jews , whose ancestors had lived in Portugal and Spain.

Ashkenazi Jews from eastern Europe immigrated in the late 19th and 20th centuries. By the 21st century, 10, Jews lived in New Orleans. This number dropped to 7, after Hurricane Katrina, but rose again after efforts to incentivize the community's growth resulted in the arrival of about an additional 2, Jews. The exception was Congregation Beth Israel , the oldest and most prominent Orthodox synagogue in the New Orleans region. Beth Israel's building in Lakeview was destroyed by flooding. After seven years of holding services in temporary quarters, the congregation consecrated a new synagogue on land purchased from the Reform Congregation Gates of Prayer in Metairie.

The earliest Filipino Americans to live within the city arrived in the early s. After Katrina the small Brazilian-American population expanded. Portuguese speakers were the second most numerous group to take English as a second language classes in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese , after Spanish speakers.

Many Brazilians worked in skilled trades such as tile and flooring, although fewer worked as day laborers than did Latinos. Brazilians settled throughout the metropolitan area. In January the New Orleans Brazilian population had a mid-range estimate of 3, By Brazilians had opened many small churches, shops and restaurants catering to their community. Beginning in , the population decreased [] [] due to factors such as the cycles of oil production and tourism, and as suburbanization increased as with many cities , [] and jobs migrated to surrounding parishes.

These areas were especially susceptible to flood and storm damage. Katrina displaced , people, contributing significantly to the decline. Their ideas included shrinking the city's footprint from before the storm, incorporating community voices into development plans, and creating green spaces , [] some of which incited controversy. New Orleans operates one of the world's largest and busiest ports and metropolitan New Orleans is a center of maritime industry.

The region accounts for a significant portion of the nation's oil refining and petrochemical production , and serves as a white-collar corporate base for onshore and offshore petroleum and natural gas production. New Orleans is also a center for higher learning , with over 50, students enrolled in the region's eleven two- and four-year degree-granting institutions. Tulane University , a top research university, is located in Uptown. Metropolitan New Orleans is a major regional hub for the health care industry and boasts a small, globally competitive manufacturing sector.

The center city possesses a rapidly growing, entrepreneurial creative industries sector and is renowned for its cultural tourism. Greater New Orleans, Inc. The Port of New Orleans is the fifth-largest in the United States based on cargo volume, and second-largest in the state after the Port of South Louisiana. It is the twelfth-largest in the U. The Port of South Louisiana, also located in the New Orleans area, is the world's busiest in terms of bulk tonnage. When combined with Port of New Orleans, it forms the 4th-largest port system in volume. Many shipbuilding, shipping, logistics, freight forwarding and commodity brokerage firms either are based in metropolitan New Orleans or maintain a local presence.

The largest coffee-roasting plant in the world, operated by Folgers , is located in New Orleans East. New Orleans is located near to the Gulf of Mexico and its many oil rigs. Louisiana ranks fifth among states in oil production and eighth in reserves. The area hosts 17 petroleum refineries, with a combined crude oil distillation capacity of nearly 2. Given the quantity of oil imports, Louisiana is home to many major pipelines: Other energy producers and oilfield services companies are headquartered in the city or region, and the sector supports a large professional services base of specialized engineering and design firms, as well as a term office for the federal government's Minerals Management Service.

The city is the home to a single Fortune company: Entergy , a power generation utility and nuclear power plant operations specialist.

After Katrina, the city lost its other Fortune company, Freeport-McMoRan , when it merged its copper and gold exploration unit with an Arizona company and relocated that division to Phoenix. Companies with significant operations or headquarters in New Orleans include: Tourism is a staple of the city's economy. In , the hospitality industry employed 85, people, making it the city's top economic sector as measured by employment. The forum, held annually at the New Orleans Morial Convention Center , is directed toward promoting cultural and economic development opportunities through the strategic convening of cultural ambassadors and leaders from around the world.

Federal agencies and the Armed forces operate significant facilities there. Other large governmental installations include the U. New Orleans has many visitor attractions, from the world-renowned French Quarter to St. Charles Avenue , home of Tulane and Loyola Universities, the historic Pontchartrain Hotel and many 19th-century mansions to Magazine Street with its boutique stores and antique shops.

According to current travel guides, New Orleans is one of the top ten most-visited cities in the United States; In May , that had declined to some hotels and motels with over 31, rooms. According to the poll, New Orleans was the best U. The city ranked second for: However, the city placed near the bottom in cleanliness, safety and as a family destination.

Also in the French Quarter is the old New Orleans Mint , a former branch of the United States Mint which now operates as a museum, and The Historic New Orleans Collection , a museum and research center housing art and artifacts relating to the history and the Gulf South. The Natchez is an authentic steamboat with a calliope that cruises the length of the city twice daily.

Unlike most other places in the United States, New Orleans has become widely known for its elegant decay. Nearby, Confederate Memorial Hall , the oldest continually operating museum in Louisiana although under renovation since Katrina , contains the second-largest collection of Confederate memorabilia.

City Park , one of the country's most expansive and visited urban parks , has one of the largest stands of oak trees in the world. Other points of interest can be found in the surrounding areas. Chalmette Battlefield and National Cemetery , located just south of the city, is the site of the Battle of New Orleans. In , New Orleans ranked No. The piece cited the city's post-Katrina rebuilding effort as well as its efforts to become eco-friendly.

The New Orleans area is home to numerous annual celebrations. The most well-known is Carnival , or Mardi Gras. Carnival officially begins on the Feast of the Epiphany , also known as the " Twelfth Night ". Mardi Gras French for "Fat Tuesday" , the final and grandest day of festivities, is the last Tuesday before the Catholic liturgical season of Lent , which commences on Ash Wednesday.

Commonly referred to simply as "Jazz Fest", it is one of the nation's largest music festivals. The festival features a variety of music, including both native Louisiana and international artists. In , Louisiana began offering tax incentives for film and television production.

This led to a substantial increase in activity and brought the nickname "Hollywood South. The first opera in New Orleans was performed there in Today, opera is performed by the New Orleans Opera. New Orleans has long been a significant center for music, showcasing its intertwined European, Latin American and African cultures. The city's unique musical heritage was born in its colonial and early American days from a unique blending of European musical instruments with African rhythms.

As the only North American city to have allowed slaves to gather in public and play their native music largely in Congo Square , now located within Louis Armstrong Park , New Orleans gave birth to an epochal indigenous music: Soon, brass bands formed, beginning a century-long tradition.

The city's music was later significantly influenced by Acadiana , home of Cajun and Zydeco music, and by Delta blues.

New Orleans' unique musical culture is on display in its traditional funerals. A spin on military funerals, New Orleans' traditional funerals feature sad music mostly dirges and hymns on the way to the cemetery and happier music hot jazz on the way back. Until the s, most locals preferred to call these "funerals with music", but visitors to the city have long dubbed them " jazz funerals.

Much later in its musical development, New Orleans was home to a distinctive brand of rhythm and blues that contributed greatly to the growth of rock and roll. New Orleans became a hotbed for funk music in the s and s, and by the late s, it had developed its own localized variant of hip hop , called bounce music. While not commercially successful outside of the Deep South , it remained immensely popular in poorer neighborhoods throughout the s. Additionally, the popularity of cowpunk , a fast form of southern rock , originated with the help of several local bands, such as The Radiators , Better Than Ezra , Cowboy Mouth and Dash Rip Rock.

Throughout the s, many sludge metal bands started. New Orleans' heavy metal bands like Eyehategod , [] Soilent Green , [] Crowbar , [] and Down [] incorporated styles such as hardcore punk , doom metal and southern rock to create an original and heady brew of swampy and aggravated metal that has largely avoided standardization. New Orleans is the southern terminus of the famed Highway 61 made musically famous by Bob Dylan. New Orleans is world-famous for its food. The indigenous cuisine is distinctive and influential.

My Cleaning Concierge

The city offers notable street food [] including the Asian inspired beef Yaka mein. New Orleans developed a distinctive local dialect that is neither Cajun nor the stereotypical Southern accent that is often misportrayed by film and television actors. Like earlier Southern Englishes, feature frequent deletion of the pre-consonantal "r". This dialect is quite similar to New York City area accents such as " Brooklynese ", to people unfamiliar with either.

New Orleans

As a result, many of the ethnic groups who reside in Brooklyn also reside in New Orleans, such as the Irish , Italians especially Sicilians , Germans and a Jewish community. One of the strongest varieties of the New Orleans accent is sometimes identified as the Yat dialect , from the greeting "Where y'at? Less visibly, various ethnic groups throughout the area have retained distinct language traditions.

It has hosted the Super Bowl a record seven times , , , , , , and New Orleans is also home to the Fair Grounds Race Course , the nation's third-oldest thoroughbred track. The city's Lakefront Arena has also been home to sporting events. The City is a political subdivision of the state of Louisiana. It has a mayor-council government , following a Home Rule Charter adopted in , as later amended.

The city council consists of seven members, who are elected by district and two at-large councilmembers. The mayor as of was Mitch Landrieu. The Criminal Sheriff, Marlin Gusman , maintains the parish prison system, provides security for the Criminal District Court, and provides backup for the New Orleans Police Department on an as-needed basis. An ordinance in established an Office of Inspector General to review city government activities. The city and the parish of Orleans operate as a merged city-parish government.

The city of Lafayette including the Garden District was added in as the 10th and 11th wards. In , Jefferson City, including Faubourg Bouligny and much of the Audubon and University areas, was annexed as the 12th, 13th, and 14th wards. Algiers , on the west bank of the Mississippi, was also annexed in , becoming the 15th ward.

New Orleans' government is largely centralized in the city council and mayor's office, but it maintains earlier systems from when various sections of the city managed their affairs separately. For example, New Orleans had seven elected tax assessors, each with their own staff, representing various districts of the city, rather than one centralized office.

A constitutional amendment passed on November 7, consolidated the seven assessors into one in Crime is an ongoing problem. As in comparable U. The murder count surpassed Gary, Indiana , Washington D. In New Orleans homicide rate was nearly eight times the national average and had the highest per capita city murder rate of any city in the United States with homicides up from the previous year. The violent crime rate was a key issue in the mayoral race. In January , several thousand New Orleans residents marched to City Hall for a rally demanding police and city leaders tackle the crime problem.

Then-Mayor Ray Nagin said he was "totally and solely focused" on addressing the problem. Later, the city implemented checkpoints during late night hours in problem areas. Katrina was a watershed moment for the school system. It was also the lowest-performing school district in Louisiana. According to researchers Carl L. Bankston and Stephen J. Caldas, only 12 of the public schools within the city limits showed reasonably good performance. Following Hurricane Katrina, the state of Louisiana took over most of the schools within the system all schools that matched a nominal "worst-performing" metric.

At the start of the school year, all public school students in the NOPS system attended these independent public charter schools , the nation's first to do so. An October assessment demonstrated continued growth in the academic performance of public schools. Considering the scores of all public schools in New Orleans gives an overall school district performance score of One particular change was that parents could choose which school to enroll their children in , rather than attending the school nearest them.

Long Library at the University of New Orleans. The New Orleans Public Library operates in 13 locations. An independently operated lending library called Iron Rail Book Collective specializes in radical and hard-to-find books. The library contains over 8, titles and is open to the public.

It operated first at Howard Memorial Library. Historically, the major newspaper in the area was The Times-Picayune. The paper made headlines of its own in when owner Advance Publications cut its print schedule to three days each week, instead focusing its efforts on its website, NOLA. That action briefly made New Orleans the largest city in the country without a daily newspaper, until the Baton Rouge newspaper The Advocate began a New Orleans edition in September In June , the Times-Picayune resumed daily printing with a condensed newsstand tabloid edition, nicknamed TP Street , which is published on the three days each week that its namesake broadsheet edition is not printed the Picayune has not returned to daily delivery.

With the resumption of daily print editions from the Times-Picayune and the launch of the New Orleans edition of The Advocate , now The New Orleans Advocate , the city had two daily newspapers for the first time since the afternoon States-Item ceased publication on May 31, In addition to the daily newspapers, weekly publications include The Louisiana Weekly and Gambit Weekly. WWOZ, [] the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Station, broadcasts [] modern and traditional jazz, blues, rhythm and blues, brass band, gospel , cajun , zydeco , Caribbean, Latin, Brazilian, African and bluegrass 24 hours per day.

WTUL is listener supported and non-commercial. The disc jockeys are volunteers, many of them college students. Louisiana's film and television tax credits spurred growth in the television industry, although to a lesser degree than in the film industry. Many films and advertisements were set there, along with television programs such as The Real World: New Orleans in , [] The Real World: New Orleans in These two stations competed head-to-head from the late s to the late s. Hurricane Katrina devastated transit service in During the same period, streetcars arrived at an average of once every seventeen minutes, compared to bus frequencies of once every thirty-eight minutes.

The same priority was demonstrated in RTA's spending, increasing the proportion of its budget devoted to streetcars to more than three times compared to its pre-Katrina budget. Another change to transit service that year was the re-routing of the 15 Freret and 28 Martin Luther King bus routes to Canal Street. These increased the number of jobs accessible by a thirty minute walk or transit ride: This resulted in a regional increase in such job access by more than a full percentage point. The streetcar line to Desire Street became a bus line in Many bus routes connect the city and suburban areas.

Some of the replacement buses operate on biodiesel. New Orleans has had continuous ferry service since , [] operating three routes as of It services passenger vehicles, bicycles and pedestrians. The city's flat landscape, simple street grid and mild winters facilitate bicycle ridership, helping to make New Orleans eighth among U.

New Orleans is served by Interstate 10 , Interstate and Interstate I travels east—west through the city as the Pontchartrain Expressway. I provides a direct shortcut for traffic passing through New Orleans via I, allowing that traffic to bypass I's southward curve. In addition to the interstates, U. New Orleans is home to many bridges; Crescent City Connection is perhaps the most notable. It serves as New Orleans' major bridge across the Mississippi, providing a connection between the city's downtown on the eastbank and its westbank suburbs.

Other Mississippi crossings are the Huey P. Long Bridge , carrying U. Built in the s southbound span and s northbound span , the bridges connect New Orleans with its suburbs on the north shore of Lake Pontchartrain via Metairie. New Orleans International suffered some damage from Katrina, but as of April , it was the busiest airport in Louisiana and the sixth busiest in the Southeast. As of , the airport handled more than 11 million passengers, serving more than 57 destinations.

The city is served by Amtrak. With the strategic benefits of both the port and its double-track Mississippi River crossings, the city attracted six of the seven Class I railroads in North America: According to the American Community Survey , Many city of New Orleans households own no personal automobiles. The national average was 8.

New Orleans averaged 1. New Orleans ranks high among cities in terms of the percentage of working residents who commute by walking or bicycling. During the same period, New Orleans ranked thirteenth for percentage of workers who commuted by walking or biking among cities not included within the fifty most populous cities.

Only nine of the most fifty most populous cities had a higher percentage of commuters who walked or biked than did New Orleans in New Orleans has eleven sister cities: From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. This article is about the city. For other uses, see New Orleans disambiguation. Largest city in Louisiana. Consolidated city-parish in Louisiana, United States. From top, left to right: New Orleans in the American Civil War.

Drainage in New Orleans. Reconstruction of New Orleans. Buildings and architecture of New Orleans. List of tallest buildings in New Orleans. Hurricane preparedness for New Orleans. Decennial Census [92] — [93] — [94] — [95] — [96]. This section does not cite any sources. Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. July Learn how and when to remove this template message. Culture of New Orleans. Music of New Orleans. Sports in New Orleans. List of mayors of New Orleans.

Media of New Orleans. Streetcars in New Orleans. List of streets of New Orleans. List of people from New Orleans. United States Census Bureau. Retrieved July 2, Archived from the original on July 8, Retrieved January 31, New Orleans city, Louisiana". Retrieved July 7, Oxford University Press, Retrieved April 26, Archived from the original on May 15, Retrieved March 18, US Department of Commerce. Retrieved January 6, Archived from the original on January 7, Retrieved December 2, New Orleans Public Library.

Archived from the original on September 20, Retrieved February 9, Retrieved May 19, Some of the Filipinos who left their ships in Mexico ultimately found their way to the bayous of Louisiana, where they settled in the s. The film shows the remains of Filipino shrimping villages in Louisiana, where, eight to ten generations later, their descendants still reside, making them the oldest continuous settlement of Asians in America. These are the "Louisiana Manila men" with presence recorded as early as Filipino Culture in Southeast Louisiana".

Retrieved May 13, Retrieved August 25, — via Positively Filipino. Manila Men in the New World: The Quarterly Journal of Military History: Survey of Historic Sites and Buildings. Retrieved September 10, The Birthplace of Jazz" primarily excerpted from Jazz: A History of America's Music. Retrieved May 17, Archived from the original on May 22, Harvard University Press, , p. Kotlikoff and Anton J. New Orleans after the Civil War: Race, Politics, and a New Birth of Freedom.

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French, Cajun, Creole, Houma: A Primer on Francophone Louisiana. Retrieved July 29, Archived from the original PDF on June 23, Retrieved June 17, Archived from the original on June 14, Archived from the original on September 7, Retrieved March 12, Archived from the original on September 30, Retrieved March 22, The Spectrum, October Parts of New Orleans to reopen". Retrieved May 2, Retrieved August 14, Katrina Impact The Data Center". Retrieved November 9, Archived from the original on May 20, Retrieved March 23, Archived from the original on April 3, Archived from the original on October 6, Retrieved August 20, Higher Ground A study finds that New Orleans has plenty of real estate above sea level that is being underutilized.

The Times Picayune , April 21, What Went Wrong and Why. Archived July 2, , at the Wayback Machine. Report by the American Society of Civil Engineers.

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