Today’s ride took me down to the Marigny in search of a comfortable coffee shop to get some reading done. But my favorite coffee shop is on vacation! The nerve! Actually, I’m glad folks here take real vacations. We don’t do enough of that. We should all make enough money to take some time off work to be alive, methinks, but that’s a conversation for another time. It was an incredibly and sunny day, so I decided to just tool around the neighborhood, casually looking for a coffee shop I vaguely remember. I stopped on St. Ferdinand to snap a photo of the Holy Trinity Church, built in the mid-1800s to serve the German community in the area. This church is in disrepair, with No Trespassing signs posted above the doors and an overgrown yard to the side. But the church also boasts my favorite sign in New Orleans–the Certificate of Appropriateness–authorizing construction work on this historic building. I don’t know what circumstances have left the church in this condition, or what kind of work will be done when, but the building is still beautiful. Buildings that are in various states of decay and disrepair still have a life to them. This place, for example, houses several bird’s nests, still a home for them. There was also an empty cat food can sitting by the steps, and I imagine there are stray kitties who show up here for food left by friendly neighbors. I finished peeking around the building and then headed over to another coffee shop for iced tea before tooling back Uptown, grateful for another summer day on the bike.
What I Saw Riding My Bike Around Today 
Hi Kate…
Just read your blog…
BECAUSE you mentioned the certificate of appropriateness being your favourite sign…
It is MY LEAST FAVOURITE SIGN…
Why…
Well, dealing with stupidity and vindictiveness
at the HDLC…
the petty power trips…
“PARVENUE”…
power in the wrong hands…
On the night of JULY the fourth…
my house was set ablaze…illegal fireworks…
at the hands of my friendly neighbourhood drug dealers…
L…O…N…G..G..G STORY….!!!
I immediately set to work…
Along came the City Fire Investigator…
and because my property was being renovated…
new roof a couple of weeks previous to the fire…
accused me of being the problem…
because I had STUFF in my garage…
INCLUDING THREE WONDERFUL…decorated …BICYCLES…
one is still standing upright in the debris…frozen…
As we stood there, the perpertrators of the crime…
standing a few feet away from us..
started to let off MORE fireworks at 11am…
he just let it continue…
WOULD HE HAVE LET IT GO ON HAD THEY BEEN FIRING GUNS IN THE AIR.. FOR THE BULLETS TO DROP…?
THEN …up pops ELSTON HUGER from the HDLC…
hands me a gold coloured notice…to cease and desist…
until I had a Certificate of Appropriateness…
TO BOARD AND SECURE MY HOME…
that no fire debris should be removed…
and no clean up commenced until I had said Certificate…
How stupid is that…
scavengers can come and do further damage…
what could have been salvaged suffered more from the supersaturated ceilings collapsing onto the water flooded..now buckled…beatiful hardwood floors…
Need I continue to paint this picture…?
I have a blog about it on PAT JOLLY’S COMMUNITY LIST…
and the rest of the idiocy surrounding this situation…
Good Lord! That’s so, so awful. I’m off to read about it at the Community List. This town is not exactly good at priorities. I’m so sorry about your losses.
Hi Kate…
Thanks for your kind thoughts…
they are much appreciated…
with regard to my postings on PAT JOLLY…you can send me an email at FQ1209@aol.com and I will forward the
“journal” to you…
PRINCESS….!!!!
Um – – St Ferdinand St is in the Marigny not the Bywater.
Eva, you are correct. My bad.