The neutral ground at the corner of State St. and Willow will be renovated by CUNA to make it a pedestrian-friendly, ecologically sound, and well-landscaped space. Coordinator Mark DeJarnette has put together a fabulous landscape plan for the area. You can view it below (if you don’t have Adobe reader to open this document, click here.)

State St/Willow Plan

There was a clean-up on Sat. June 9 in preparation for further efforts.  Special thanks to sixteen energetic University of California at Berkley students who volunteered; their help came through the coordinated efforts of the New Orleans-based Neighborhoods Partnership Network and the Magnolia Project. Nine neighborhood volunteers, two of whom have just moved to the area, also came out to make this effort a huge success.
CUNA would also like to thank Krystal Williams, from the Council District A, Shelly Midura’s office, and Papa John’s Pizza owner Louie Corzo, and his sons, who set up a Papa John’s gazebo to feed hungry volunteers.

For more details, read the Times-Picayune article

If you are interested in helping out, please contact Mark at mark.dejarnette@gmail.com).

A little corner of Vendome Place is blossoming, thanks to a generous contribution by Shell Exploration & Production Company, and the hard work of members of the Claiborne-University Neighborhood Association (CUNA). The newly-landscaped Vendome Triangle garden is a result of Shell’s Ambassador Grant Program, created to provide financial resources in support of rebuilding/recovery projects. CUNA members and Shell employees Kristi Trail, Kim Limmex and Scott Anderson jointly applied for the grant with the hope of helping their Vendome Place neighborhood.  The street had several feet of water during the post-Katrina flooding.

Trail and fellow CUNA members decided to put the money into Vendome Triangle, a sliver of land at the intersection of vendome and Dart, which was transformed from a patch of dirt and dead trees to a landscaped jewel of the street. Plantings include hibiscus, crepe myrtles, azaleas and liriope. Pro-bono landscape design services were provided by landscape architect Toomas Soosar. Kim Limmex, a Vendome Place homeowner, coordinated the purchase, installation and continued care of the plants. CUNA member Jay Dufour handled the permitting and registering CUNA as a Parkway Partner. Harold’s Nursery provided the plants at a discount. Other participants were: Scott Anderson, Sandy Juarez, Nancy Morais, Anne Eckert, Blake Heymann and Paul Gibbs.