Wendell Pierce, the New Orleans native and actor who portrayed Bunk Moreland in The Wire, is working to rebuild Pontchartrain Park, the neighborhood in which he was raised and which was flooded during Hurricane Katrina. Pierce has been splitting his time between Los Angeles and New Orleans, where he's also the president of the Pontchartrain Park Neighborhood Association. USA Today reports:
The Pontchartrain Park project is at the core of a massive undertaking by the New Orleans Redevelopment Authority to acquire and sell 4,500 lots formerly occupied by Katrina-ravaged homes. The lots were purchased from residents by the state using money from Road Home, a hurricane-relief program. The state is now transferring ownership to NORA, which can sell to private developers or individuals. ...
Since Pierce's non-profit group acts as the developer on the Pontchartrain Park initiative, all profits from sales of the homes will be reinvested into the area, either by enhancing the neighborhood or creating an endowment to help in the event of future floods, he says. ...
"We've stepped up to the plate and met government halfway to say, 'We're bringing a solution to the table,' " Pierce says. "It's a model for the rest of the city."
David Calhoun and Elizabeth “EB” Brooks are the first two employees of Lafayette Central Park Inc., the nonprofit charged with turning Lafayette Consolidated Government’s 100-acre Johnston Street Horse Farm property into a passive public park. Calhoun was named executive director, and Brooks is director of planning and design.
At Thursday's State of the Economy luncheon, LEDA President and CEO Gregg Gothreaux said PXP has already quietly hired 180 people for its Broussard expansion.
There will soon be a whole lot of shakin’ going on at Benny’s Sportshack Supplement Depot, a new concept by Opelousas native Benny Nele. Located at 2002 Johnston St., the supplement shop, smoothie bar and café, featuring hot off the press paninis and wraps, plans to open in late May.
This year’s Cool Town issue is all about people who are not native to South Louisiana but made a conscious decision to be here, to be among us, to participate in our culture and contribute to it.
A shelved ordinance transferring $200,000 from a northside drainage project to a south Lafayette development may not break any laws, but it stinks to high heaven.
An effort to restore a shuttered dancehall and document other vacant or razed honky-tonks could serve as a model for saving an endangered species of entertainment.
Lafayette’s gene pool has been host to a long line of eccentric characters who have blurred the lines between crazy, genius, disturbed and curiously entertaining.
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