and just being one of the coolest places ever
Birthplace of the American Navy, home of the original Spirit of 76 painting and Marshmallow Fluff.
Mel Ott
I was driving home across the Walt Whitman Bridge with my Dad when we saw the smoke . Turned the radio on to KYW to see what was happening. One of the old entrance gate buildings is still standing off of Rt. 70 across from the Holiday Inn.A spectacular fire at a race track over 40 years ago. Probably the biggest news ever in the town. Over 10,000 were in attendance at the time. Three people died, a fireman, a track employee, and a customer. No horses were killed or injured.
The track was completely destroyed and rebuilt about six years later. Unfortunately it wasn't as successful as the original and closed in 2001. Big box retail shopping, condos, and restaurants are now on the site.
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The front page of the next day's newspaper was printed sideways.
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Yep! Same here. My “mom & them” were all born & raised here tooNew Orleans, although we live a few miles away now
the good:
2 huge music festivals, the WW II museum, readily available, depending on season, crabs, crawfish, shrimp, oysters, fish, a multitude of great restaurants, Coolinary event the whole month of August (dinners $39, lunches $20), king cakes and dauberge, Mardi Gras of course decent zoo and aquarium, good public transportation depending on where you live, great Mississippi river views from various vantage points, the Saints, really friendly people.
And for me, my best friend lives in a building with a balcony overlooking the river near Audobon park, and has an extra bedroom that we are always welcome to
The bad:
Heat, humidity and hurricanes
Street flooding if it rains a couple inches an hour for a few hours
Crime
Potholes
Traffic ugh
My husband was born there, my momma and her family were all born and raised there (most still live there), I went to HS and college there, married there, kids born there, guess it will always be our home town despite the bad stuff.
Gretna??Mel Ott
]Yep! Same here. My “mom & them” were all born & raised here too
So classic question...where’d ya go to school?
Lol! Westbanker here...I went to Immaculata. Went to LSU for college (probably guessed that). I didn’t know Ben Franklin use to be there. My mom’s mom went to Ursuline College lol.]
Ha, that IS the classic question. For high school, I went to Ben Franklin back in the day when it was on South Carrollton near the riverbend. College was UNO. My mom went to Dominican College on St Charles.
What about you?
Lol! Westbanker here...I went to Immaculata. Went to LSU for college (probably guessed that). I didn’t know Ben Franklin use to be there. My mom’s mom went to Ursuline College lol.
Small world! I’m sitting in Harvey right now! I work at West Jeff HS now & I grew up in Algiers & still live here. I lived in BR for a while too after I graduated college & then Katrina came so we stayed longer than expected. But, like you said in your previous post, NOLA is home so we came back. But, I’d love to live that close to the stadium on game days! We don’t get up there as much b/c DS is only 16 mos. Hoping he can start going to some games next year!My mom was born in Gretna and most her family still lives in Marrero, Gretna, Harvey etc. When I was in HS we lived in Algiers so I did the commute daily. It was a pain but my mom did the ferry from Harvey to uptown in the late forties so she wins the prize. Our youngest graduated from LSU last year. And we can see that football stadium in the distance from the entrance to our neighborhood. Not great on game day, lol.