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New Orleans: Election Day
by Johnny Adriani 04/27/2006Neighborhood: Letter From Abroad
Election day in New Orleans has always possessed a flare unlike anywhere else in the world. My first recollections of how crazy election day can be come from 1989. Nothing, however, topped 1991, when Edwin Edwards and David Duke competed against each other in the run-off. Nothing, that is, until Saturday’s semi-circus atmosphere outside the [...]
A Blues Clues Companion Was I
by Kristine Simmons 04/20/2006Neighborhood: Across the River, Letter From Abroad
I, Granny, took the helm at approximately 1200 hours. Steering a true course, all was calm for the day. The squab finished his mess; skies remained calm, no squalls of crying. Grandson and I played toss with a small orange ball and spent hours crawling around. Tumble salts off my legs; giggles of delight. Peek-a-boo’s [...]
Astronomical Odds
by Johnny Adriani 04/06/2006Neighborhood: Letter From Abroad
The odds for winning the Powerball are146 million to one. I would suppose that finding the winning ticket lying on the street would be a million times the 146 million to one. But I do propose to you the question of how likely it would be for a mayoral candidate of New Orleans to be [...]
I know it sounds kind of cliché…
by Mickey & Kate 03/16/2006Neighborhood: Letter From Abroad
So I fell in love with this girl named Kate. And all that remains is this sordid little correspondence that I have left from the beginning our affair. I wish it included all the walks we took on the snowy streets of Detroit or the hours we spent laying in bed daydreaming about tomorrow. But [...]
Philadelphia: Its Own Borough
by Denise Campbell 03/16/2006Neighborhood: Letter From Abroad
“Philadelphia is nobody’s sixth borough,” proclaimed the heading of a column in one of Philly’s daily newspapers. “Especially not New York’s,” the column went on to say. The writer was responding to a New York Times article chronicling the migration of New Yorkers to Philadelphia. It noted that Philadelphians themselves occasionally referred to their city [...]
The Midtown Report: Metrosexual Occupational Forces Have Taken Over Downtown
by J. Paul Ghetto 03/10/2006Neighborhood: Letter From Abroad
At the beginning of February, the city was overrun by rabid sports fans. I went downtown about 9 days before the big foosball game. Streets were barricaded and blocked off. Downtown Detroit had a different type of buzz. Metro Detroiters were excited because so many people would be in town. Here in the Midwest, we [...]
Mr. O’Brien’s Legacy
by Kitty Derbin 01/26/2006Neighborhood: Letter From Abroad
I learned a lot from my grandpa, John Francis O’Brien, a native of Cork city (Ireland) and an immigrant to America. He used to always say that he was closest to God when he was connected to nature. Grandpa was quite an unusual character in our working class neighborhood on Detroit’s West Side, just a [...]
Adriani For Mayor
by Johnny Adriani 01/26/2006Neighborhood: All Over, Letter From Abroad
Today I had perhaps the most unique experience that I have ever had in my lifetime. I began walking the streets of New Orleans and speaking to people on a one on one basis. This may seem odd to you, and perhaps it is, but I canvassed New Orleans today not as a citizen but [...]
The Unsung Hero: A Ford Motor Company Story
by Eric C. Novack 01/26/2006Neighborhood: Letter From Abroad
The headline on the Detroit Free Press was bold. But it was just another clever way of stating the obvious. Ford Motor Company was going to announce “The Way Forward,” actually a way to cut back. Ron Novack sat at his kitchen table and skimmed the story about the plant closures and layoffs that would [...]
Christmas Day in a Parallel Queens
by Emily Weinstein 01/05/2006Neighborhood: All Over, Letter From Abroad
On this warm, wet Christmas, I ambled without purpose somewhere in America. I prefer the inevitable disappointment of a sodden Christmas–the remains of an earlier December snowfall dribbling down storm drains, the exiled smokers unshivering, unbothering with jackets, exhalations elongated in the humidity, the theatrical coziness of houses all the more fake against temperatures well [...]
Christmas in New Orleans
by Johnny Adriani 01/05/2006Neighborhood: Letter From Abroad
Sprouting out of the ground, just south and east of New Orleans, is Christmas. It is a bizarre sort of nativity scene which bears the fruited colors of the season: green and red. Absent are the Magi bringing frankincense, myrrh or oil. Rather, what is present, green on the outside and red upon being split [...]
Head Trip
by Julie Polk 01/05/2006Neighborhood: Letter From Abroad
Before we could convince him to go the neurologist, my father had two head-on collisions in eleven months without remembering how he’d gotten into either of them. Despite my suspicions, I didn’t learn it was Alzheimer’s for sure until my oldest brother called to tell me on the day before Thanksgiving. The call came ten [...]
