Lower Decatur Street, New Orleans

The Lower Decatur Merchants Association and LowerDecatur.com have teamed up to sponsor a new annual event for the kids of New Orleans. Inspired by the traditional fall pumpkin sales at the French Market’s produce shed, we present:

Paint-A-Pumpkin 2006

Kids of all ages are invited to the 400 block of Governor Nichols (between Decatur Street and French Market Place) on Saturday October 14th from Noon to 3pm. We’ll be painting pumpkins which will be available for a nominal cost (you may bring your own). All of the decorating materials will be provided. Trick-or-Treat bags will be given to all the kids. Other activities include Magic Shows, Balloon art, and Giant Bubble blowing. Costumes are encouraged.

Saturday, October 14th Noon - 3pm

400 Block of Governor Nichols (Next to Mojo Lounge)

A special thanks goes out to our own Tyler’s Pride Produce, located at 67-81 French Market Place, for helping us stock our pumpkin patch. If you ever need wholesale produce in the city be sure to give Chuck a call at (504) 561-8286

As An Alternative To The Same Old Thursday Night In NOLA.

Starting Thursday November 9th (And Every Other Thursday Thereafter).

SWING NIGHTS @ THE DERVISH Hosted By D.J. Sharky

And To Kick It Off, An Early Bird SUPER SPECIAL .50 Cent Shots (Bartender’s Call) & $1.00 Well Drinks & PBR’s From 9:00-11:00 P.M. !!!

Come Early, Get Drunk & Have Fun!

Local hero Don got fed up with New Orleans’ self apointed graffiti czar. Fred Radtke, AKA the Grey Ghost, has been painting Grey blobs over graffiti and stickers on buildings, street signs, vehicles, and just about everything else in the city for years. Don decided to take action by requesting paint from property owners, and then painting the property to cover the Grey blobs. We caught up with Don as he painted the building at 1225 Decatur, which is owned by the Le Richelieu Hotel and serves as their laundry facility. He plans on establishing a community bulliten board to house the many flyers that are posted here everyday.

This Wednesday a mule pulling tourists through the French Quarter got spooked on Lower Decatur Street. They turned around on the 1200 block and went against traffic down the street bashing a minivan in front of Cafe Envie. A passenger jumped to safety near the Mint, and was later seen being checked out by EMS. Then the mule and empty carriage went the wrong way up Esplanade hitting several cars until, finally stopping when they impaled the side of a small car.

Mule 1 Cars 0

What me?

STAY BACK 15 MILES

• A ‘Link to Us‘ page has been created. This allows folks to make a link back to LowerDecatur.com without any knowledge of web publishing. If you have a business on Lower Decatur with a web presence linking is strongly suggested.
• The ‘Lower Decatur Links’ page was created. It uses the same database that generates the links on the sidebar. This most likely will be replaced in the future.
• The EzStatic plugin has been disabled and removed, as it was discoverd that embedding the map into a page is possible without this plugin. Several links to the map on the site were updated to reflect the change.
• The word press Searchall plugin was installed to improve results when using the search form on the site. For some unknown reason neither the current ‘Lower Decatur Links’ or the sidebar links are searched, but they are still indexed by search engines.
• Installed an RSS feed plugin that currently grabs information from the Lower Decatur group on LiveJournal. It’s located in the right sidevar. Ideally each venue with events in the neighborhood would have a simple blog account somewhere that produces an easy to integrate RSS feed. There is also the posibility of using WWOZ’s data with a google/ical calendar.
• A search engine landing feature is in the works that hopefully makes it easier for visitors from search engines (a lot of our traffic) find relevant information on the site.

There has been some work done to the Produce Market shed over the last two weeks. It’s not exactly a rush job, but you can see some progress if you compare the photos below with the first article about the renovations. All of the walk-in coolers have been ripped out, more electrical outlets have been added, and lines marking vendor stalls have been painted. Most of this appears to be in preparation for the Flea Market vendors to make their temporary move to the Produce Market’s shed.

Also, City Business has an article about the renovations and their impact on the Flea Market.

According to Richard McCall, outgoing French Market director, renovations should be completed by July of 2007. That’s a long ten months. Stay tuned for more updates.

Normally, I wouldn’t post this sort of general news, but considering that the Lower Decatur neighborhood is “New Orleans’ WiFi Hotspot“, it just made sense to mention the competition.

President of EarthLink Municipal Networks, Don Berryman, spoke last night at the Louisiana Technology Council’s EarthLink Wi-Fi Tech Tuesday event. They discussed the planed service areas, bandwidth, and pricing. Apparently 300kbs will be free for all, but 1Mbps service will be available for a fee. It looks like $21.95 for a month, while smaller units of time are also available. Some of the details are mentioned at Earthlink’s corporate blog.

Particularly interesting:

… are the special radios (4210’s) that can be mounted in police, fire, and rescue vehicles and draw power from the vehicle. This makes an individual vehicle into a mobile hotspot, allowing rescue personnel to download things like blueprints and building plans at the scene, and a group of these vehicles can provide a temporarily internet access zone wherever it’s needed.

Interested residents can call 866-936-WIFI for information and network support, and there is this Earthlink site where you can get information about the rollout, and sign up to be notified when service is available in your area.

Also worth noting is BellSouth’s WiMax service. While not quite as portable it’s a great solution that’s available today.