
(Routes and event info below the jump!)
video courtesy of LouisianaHumanities
(route details below the jump)
Robert Morris at Uptown Messenger has an update on District B City Councilwoman LaToya Cantrell's plans to seek tighter enforcement of safety laws along Mardi Gras parade routes, the subject of a January story in Gambit. Uptown Messenger with a story on a recent Cantrell-hosted meeting on the subject:
While walking the routes (or riding them, as she did in Zulu), Cantrell said her top concern was ladders too close to the street....
She observed other problems as well, she said in a short interview after the meeting — people “roping off areas and commandeering public property, and the altercations that occur from that,” the portable toilets that spring up, or the moving trucks that park near the route for instant keg parties.
Over the coming year, Cantrell said she intends to begin convening roundtable meetings with other city officials to discuss issues such as how to empower officers to cite lawbreakers in a way that will stop the problem, or how to target the owners and the renters of portable toilets that are illegally placed.
According to a press release from the Orleans Parish Sheriff's Office, 1,681 people were arrested in New Orleans between Friday, Jan. 25 and the end of Tuesday, Feb. 12, including 289 arrests during Super Bowl weekend. The Advocate reports 879 Carnival season arrest actions — a number that includes suspects who received summonses rather than being taken into custody — in the New Orleans Police Department's Eighth District, which covers the French Quarter and the Central Business District. That compares to 1,056 Eighth District arrests last year.
According to Lindsay Meaux, a spokesperson for the Sheriff's Office, the numbers released today represent only people who were arrested and brought into custody.
Average daily arrests over the season (Jan. 25-Feb. 12), based on OPSO's numbers:
88.47 per day overall.
72.25 per day during Super Bowl festivities.
92.8 per day for the Carnival season not including Super Bowl days.
The Metropolitan Crime Commission reported in May that 33,117 people were arrested in all of 2011. That works out to an average of about 90.7 per day.
(Read the press release after the jump)
Mardi Gras Day I walked outside my house and was greeted with this:
It aint for everybody but for me, it gets no better than Mardi Gras day in Treme. We've got the Skeletons setting it off at the break of dawn, waking up the neighborhood with their howling and clacking. This gives me just enough time to get up, get myself together, make snacks for all my visitors (my house is Bathroom Break Central) and a cocktail for myself. By then its time to catch the Zulu parade passing by Orleans and Claiborne, the epicenter of Black Mardi Gras, on their way back home over on Broad Street. All the downtown Indians (and some Uptowns ones) make their way over here to holler about their prettiness and be admired. Baby dolls are prancing around, grills and stereo systems in front of every third house doing their thing. The Candlelight bar, official clubhouse of the neighborhood, is jammed packed feeding and boozing everyone. And of course, it wouldn’t be Treme without one or two second line parades rolling through, ensuring that we don’t end our day without a good ole shakedown in the street.
And now, the award for best throw of Mardi Gras 2013 - this one is NSFW kiddies!
(NSFW photo below the jump!)
There’s just a little more than one day to celebrate Carnival traditions. One more day to sample king cakes and decide which flavor is your favorite and who makes the best. And one day to deliver on the obligation that comes with getting the baby.
Speaking of the baby, the King Cake Baby has come of age, with a filmmaker using the Carnival icon to teach the world about Mardi Gras culinary traditions, specifically king cakes. Baby was interviewed by Megan Braden Perry in this space last year — perhaps about the same time this documentary/music video launched. You go Baby!
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So what is your favorite king cake?
Orleans Avenue/Canal Street neutral ground report, Friday (yesterday's report is here).
Spray paint: check
Netting around front lawns: ubiquitous
Trash cans blocking off parking: everywhere
Stakes, tape and string: oh, mais oui
Port-o-lets: take your pick
Tents 'n' chairs 'n' stuff: boy howdy
People: hordes
Guy with a rattail buying smokes at Walgreens: we've got that covered
Furniture: some
Sketchy carny-style food trucks selling funnel cakes: not yet
We'll start on Canal Street, just off Carrollton:

More under the jump!
Orleans Avenue neutral ground report, Thursday (yesterday's report is here).
Many of the "good spaces" have already been claimed, Endymiongoers:
Spray paint: check
Netting around front lawns: check
Trash cans blocking off parking: check
Stakes, tape and string: check
Port-o-lets: check
People: a few
Furniture: not yet
Let's go to the photos:

"Maomi & Friends" (?) have a sweet corner view.