Plessy & OPSB Contact Info
Many parents have contacted me to see how they can reach out to voice their concerns. Please see below the contact info for the Homer Plessy Board and Orleans Parish School Board. If you have personal email addresses for any of these people - please let me know.
The Homer Plessy Board has the power to: 1. Not apply and 2. Vote NO on moving. The OPSB has the power to not award Plessy with the building.
Plessy School Contact Information: Meghan Raychaudhuri, CEO Plessy Schools - meghan@plessyschool.org
Plessy Board of Directors:
Officers Tiffany Smith, J.D., Tulane University, President- tiffany.smith@plessyschool.org
Chris O’Neill, University Medical Center New Orleans, Vice President - christopher.oneill@lcmchealth.com
Juan Linares, Pareto Securities, Treasurer Desiree Ontiveros, Founder and CEO at Badass Balloon Co., Secretary- info@badassballoonco.com
Board Members Emily Madero, President & CEO, French Quarter Festivals, Inc. - emily.madero@fqfi.org
Don-Scott Cooper, Executive Director, Le Petit Theatre - dcooper@lepetittheatre.com
Sarah DeBacher, Plessy Parent and Vice President of Education, Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities - debacher@leh.org
Whitney Henderson, EdNavigator - info@ednavigator.org
Honorable Marcus O. DeLarge, Orleans Parish Criminal District Court - SectionK@criminalcourt.org
Grace Wilson Birch, Digital x Public Relations Specialist, New Orleans Sewerage and Water Board
Katie Darling, August Schools
New Orleans Public Schools – School Board
Olin G Parker – President. District 3. Board_Member3@opsb.us
Dr. Jancarlos (J. C.) Wagner Romero – Vice President. District 4 (French Quarter). Board_Member4@opsb.us
John A. Brown, Sr. District 1. Board_Member1@opsb.us
Ethan Ashley. District 1. Board_Member2@opsb.us
Nolan Marshall Jr. District 7. Board_Member7@opsb.us
Katherine Baudouin. District 5. Board_Member5@opsb.us
Carlos Luis Zervigon. District 6. Board_Member6@opsb.us
Condos Over Kids: The Last Remaining French Quarter School May Close
Homer Plessy Community School quietly attempting relocation out of historic French Quarter building, opening a possible sale of the valuable real estate between Royal & Bourbon streets
Homer Plessy Community School, home of the “Quarter Kids” will no longer be located in the French Quarter, if a proposal to relocate the school to the Bywater goes through. This move will pull the last remaining children out of the French Quarter, leaving a site that has held a schoolhouse since 1860.
Located at 721 St. Phillip St, between Royal and Bourbon Streets, Homer Plessy Community School took over the former McDonogh 15 School Building in 2017. This historic building was initially built in 1932 on land bequeathed to the City of New Orleans in 1865. It had held a schoolhouse since at 1860.
The Homer Plessy Community School, however, is now quietly discussing a move out of the French Quarter, to the Arise Academy campus at 3819 St Claude Ave in the Bywater. The nine lot building Plessy currently occupies between Royal and Bourbon Street could be one of the most valuable in the French Quarter to developers, and would likely suffer the same fate as the St. Louis Cathedral Academy, which closed in 2013 and has since become “The Academy” – luxury apartments available for $2450 - $3695 per month. A move by Plessy to the soon available Arise Academy location could allow for a sale of the property by the Orleans Parish School Board.
This move to relocate the school has thus far been discussed in secret between members of the Plessy School Board. As of this writing, only some teachers have been notified, and parents of Plessy students have not been asked for opinion, comment, or even notified of the proposal. In a December Board meeting agenda, this proposal was cryptically referred to as “Building Opportunities”. In the February Plessy School Board meeting, this proposal was discussed, but was not included as an agenda item. The Board meeting minutes have not been published to the Plessy Website since October 2020. The next board meeting will come after the proposal for the building must be submitted, leaving no time for comment or discussion.
While the Plessy school campus, owned by OPSB, is apparently in need of renovations, alternative plans for fund raising have not been considered by or offered to the parents, teachers and other stakeholders of the Homer Plessy Community School.
Plessy is now one of the most diverse schools in New Orleans, a goal specifically enacted by the founders of the school. After years of difficulty fully integrating the school while located in the 7th ward, Plessy was moved to the French Quarter with the goal of “spurring growth, and attracting a broader base of students”. Now the school is looking to move out of the Quarter, without addressing that the opposite effect may likely take hold.
When Plessy was founded, Julie Hanks, Director of Development said “If you’re from Uptown or the 9th Ward, or Lakeview, or the East, everybody has a chance to come into the French Quarter and feel a part of the city as a whole. Which is also what we are hoping to reflect in our hallways: that all are welcome.”
The arts-focused curriculum is especially integrated within the French Quarter. From the brass bands that greet kids at the beginning of each semester, to musical greats like Trombone Shorty and Big Freedia who have taught students and have led the annual Plessy second line, to the daily walks through the neighborhood to experience the art and culture that makes up the French Quarter - simply being located in the Quarter provides numerous benefits for student education.
This benefit goes both ways - for the French Quarter, the diversity, youth, excitement and expansion of knowledge centered in the school helps the Quarter stay an interesting, vibrant and culturally relevant part of New Orleans. Moving this school, removing that diversity, and replacing it with additional condos or hotel rooms further solidifies the French Quarter as a place that isn’t for, and isn’t accessible to, most people who live in New Orleans.
New Orleans complicated system of application to charter schools looks more similar to a medical school match than most state’s public school systems, and often forces parents to make decisions for their child’s next 9-13 years during the kindergarten application process. A lottery for the best rated schools happens each year. When parents pick a school, they may be picking a philosophy or group of teachers, but are most often picking a location – a building, a neighborhood, an environment in which they want their kids to be educated in. Many parents chose Plessy because of its location – sacrificing spots at better rated, more convenient, or private schools - to send their kids to be educated in the French Quarter of New Orleans.
Homer Plessy has become an integral part of the French Quarter, as the school located at 721 St Phillip St has been since 1860. Likewise, the French Quarter has become an integral part of the education taught at Homer Plessy Community School. A move to a new building may solve short term problems and be profitable for the OPSB, but may ultimately lead to negative outcomes for both the students of Homer Plessy, and the French Quarter as a whole.
The proposal for this move comes this spring, with the next Plessy board meeting not occurring until April. Parents of Plessy students have not thus far been notified of or consulted for opinion on this proposal.
I bought a fake Storyville artifact so you don’t have to.
I’m always on the hunt for pieces of history from New Orleans - with the holy grail being anything from Storyville. Having only been in operation for twenty years, from 1897-1917, and later being mostly leveled to make way for public housing, very few authentic items from Storyville survived. While there was a significant amount of marketing and advertising within the district, items were rarely labeled, and attribution 100+ years later for common objects is difficult, if not impossible. In his book Storyville, New Orleans, Al Rose stated that he had studied every authentic Storyville artifact and “To my knowledge, not a single additional item has turned up in the past ten years.” While it is possible (and probable) that more artifacts have come to light in the years since the book’s 1974 publishing, it speaks to the rarity of items that carry provenance from The District.
There are occasional pieces from Storyville that come to private sale or auction - most notably copies of the Blue Book, a pamphlet that advertised the locations and services of Storyville. (You can learn more about these in Guidebooks to Sin: The Blue Books of Storyville, New Orleans by Pamela D. Arceneaux) Copies of newspapers such as the Mascot, or the occasional telephone directory are somewhat common. Other advertising or items from the brothels themselves are nearly non-existent on the public market.
It was especially surprising then that this past Thanksgiving morning my eBay alerts clued me in to a piece not only attributed to, but labeled “Storyville”. The item was a brass match safe, with one side an embossed nude woman, and on the other side printed behind yellowed celluloid “Compliments of Josie Arlington’s. Fulfull your needs. Storyville, LA”. Match safes were common pieces of advertising for many different kinds of businesses - from saloons to hardware stores, insurance companies to pharmacies - carried constantly, serving as a frequent reminder of the advertised brand. I had never before seen one from Storyville, but it wasn’t out of the realm of possibility that they existed there during that time.
The seller was an older collector and seller of vintage tobbaciana that had a wide variety of vintage cigar lighters, match cases, advertising, and a collection of vintage vice items including Nevada brothel cards. This collection was the perfect Venn diagram that a Storyville match safe would fit into, and lended credence to this object being a piece purchased long ago when items from Storyville may have been more available. A positive feedback history and a number of other bidders on the item helped to tell that story. However, there were a number of red flags with the auction, including three, low res photos being the only representation on the listing itself. In addition, the fonts and layout were questionable for a piece of the period, as was the idea that such an impossibly rare piece ended up in a random eBay auction without provenance.
Given that we were days away from opening a store on Royal Street based on the vice & graft of the Storyville era, I decided I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to own a piece of The District if it happened to be authentic - so I bid and won the match safe without much more digging.
Once I won the item, however, I started digging and found even more red flags: There were three other similar items that had been sold in the past - but all three were from the same seller. If these were widely available enough that one person could collect multiple, it’s unlikely that no other copies would have come to market in the past 15 years. Additionally, the other examples were all different match cases, but very similar in style - close enough that it was likely the same manufacturer, but all made for competing brothels in Storyville. While not conclusive by any means, and quite possible with the limitations of local manufacturers, it’s still less likely that all of the major brothels used the exact same form for their advertising. Looking more closely at the purchased piece, the two bottom fonts at least appear to be modern fonts that would not have been available during that time, and a tell-tale sign appeared: state abbreviations weren’t standardized to two capital letters until 1963 - before that time, and certainly in the time of Storyville, the abbreviation would have been “La.” - not “LA”.
A final red flag appeared when looking at the other previously sold items: fonts that did not exist at the time of Storyville, and color printing that would not have been possible during the Storyville era:
Once the match safe arrived, my suspicions were confirmed: the fonts looked modern (though certainly better than the red comic-sans off-shoot font pictured above) and looked to have been digitally printed. I decided to take off the faceplate of the piece to inspect it further, and immediately found the truth of the piece:
Once the outer case was removed, it became more clear that the advertisement was a later addition to the match safe. The advertisement was printed on a modern paper - paper that had been printed black on one side, and was printed with a “vintage” yellow textured pattern on the front to appear to be aged. The paper itself was still white, but had been printed to look older. Additionally, it became clear that the text had been digitally printed.
Very unfortunately, this piece turned out not to be an authentic piece of Storyville advertising - and I would also assume that the other pieces that had been sold previously are also inauthentic. Additionally, the eBay seller I purchased this from had another version currently at auction, as well as a completely unmarked lighter attributed to Mahogany Hall. When I sent him information about this item’s authenticity, he disagreed, but still cancelled both of those auctions as well. Giving the benefit of the doubt, the current seller who said he purchased these decades ago at swamp meets could have also been fooled by a seller manufacturing faked items in the earlier days of digital printing, before the internet could be used as a quick reference for these types of items.
Though I wish this was an authentic piece of Storyville advertising, I’m glad to get the chance to share the process of researching and authenticating/determining an inauthentic piece from The District.
Vintage clothing & antique store opening November 27 on Royal Street in French Quarter
New Orleans, Louisiana – November 24, 2021 – The French Quarter will be home to a new vintage store this Saturday, November 27th, 2021. Vice & Graft curates men’s and women’s clothing & antiques, inspired by the history of New Orleans. They will host their grand opening at 927 Royal Street on Saturday, November 27th at noon.
Vice & Graft will be founder Chris Olsen’s second French Quarter vintage store opened in less than 4 months – with Swamp Rags Vintage on St. Louis Street having opened on July 31st. Olsen created the Vice & Graft brand several years ago as a side-hustle, but it quickly grew when he joined Magazine Merchant House in May, 2019. He has since partnered with his wife Megan to further grow the brand and expand to this Royal Street location.
The store owes its name to New Orleans, a city that has been said to have been built on Vice & Graft, and is a celebration of the history of the city.
“I’ve always been fascinated by history; antiques, anything old” said Chris “we grew up in the Rust Belt, where a collective history is really what communities are built on. There’s not much else.” “But about ten years ago we found New Orleans, and the French Quarter has really taken us in. New Orleans is so beautiful in its history, and we want to celebrate that through our shop.” From the merchants and artists who made the French Quarter their home, to the soldiers who were stationed here, to the red-light district of the Storyville era, everything in Vice & Graft pulls from the history of the city.
“Many of our pieces are what you would have seen people wearing in Storyville and during the prohibition era here in the French Quarter.” Said Megan Olsen, co-owner of Vice & Graft. “We have flapper dressers & robes, early lingerie, and a lot of post-war wearable pieces.” The store carries vintage clothing for all genders & sizes and features a large array of antique photos, books, and memorabilia from New Orleans.
Vice & Graft will open at 927 Royal Street on November 27th, 2021. All public and media are invited to attend the grand opening from 12-6 and an afterparty beginning at 7pm. For more information please visit @viceandgraft on Instagram, viceandgraft.com or contact Chris directly at chris@viceandgraft.com
Vintage clothing store opening July 31 in French Quarter
New Orleans, Louisiana – July 26, 2021 – The French Quarter will be home to a new vintage clothing store July 31, 2021. Swamp Rags Vintage curates 80’s & 90’s pop culture nostalgia in the form of t-shirts, jackets, denim, collectables and more. They will host their grand opening at 533 Saint Louis St on Saturday July 31st, 2021 at noon, with the store open until 7pm.
Swamp Rags Vintage was created by co-founders Chris Olsen & Dante Graziani during the COVID-19 pandemic, when their love of vintage became a solution to the disruption caused by pandemic shutdowns. Dante, a tour manager for internationally touring bands, saw his industry grind to a halt overnight. Chris, a partner at a creative agency whose New Orleans clients were primarily bars & restaurants, felt a similar shift.
Like many people, Dante & Chris turned to their passions to make ends meet. “It was like a fresh slate.” said Chris “with everything closed, when things re-opened, we could do anything.” Dante began sourcing and selling vintage t-shirts, and Chris formed Vice & Graft, a vintage clothing and furniture business within the Merchant House co-op. After working together on and off for months, they decided to join forces to create Swamp Rags Vintage.
“We always knew we wanted to open a store in the French Quarter, but weren’t quite sure how we could make that happen.” said Dante. What happened next seemed like fate, though. While hunting at early morning estate sales, Chris & Dante happened upon a sale with over 3000 vintage t-shirts. The former owners had put their shop stock in storage preparing for Hurricane Katrina, and it had been closed up ever since. They were finally cleaning everything out, and Dante & Chris offered to buy it all. “As soon as I started looking through the boxes, I knew we just had to have it.” said Dante. By that afternoon they were sorting through boxes upon boxes of vintage gold which became the foundation of the new Swamp Rags Vintage store.
Since then, Dante & Chris have found many more troves of t-shirts and vintage clothing, focusing on 80’s & 90’s pop culture items and pieces of New Orleans history. “We wanted to curate a store of the things we grew up on.” said Chris. Clothing and collectables from the movies, cartoons, video games and music of the 80’s and 90’s fill the shop. Their inventory also includes dozens of early Jazz Fest shirts, rare Saints clothing, historical pieces from Pontchartrain Beach, the 1984 World Expo and more. “We just filled the shop with the things we love.”
Swamp Rags Vintage will open at 533 Saint Louis St, between Decatur & Chartres. “We’re proud to be a part of our new block” said Chris, “which includes famed restaurants NOLA, the Napoleon House, and the New Orleans School of Cooking. It’s a dream to be opening our store here.” All public and media are invited to attend the grand opening Saturday July 31, 2021 at noon – 7pm. For more information, please visit @swamprags on Instagram, swamprags.com or contact us directly at info@swamprags.com.