FOLC was founded in 2006. We have been advocating to preserve and revitalize the Lafitte Corridor and adjacent neighborhoods via the creation of a greenway. Read about our mission.
The City of New Orleans has contracted with Design Workshop to plan, design and construct a greenway in the Lafitte Corridor.
FOLC’s membership dues are $10 a year. Fill out the form above and you should be prompted to pay your dues, or visit our donate page. (Please indicate “membership” in the “Payment For” field.) And, of course, you may also join at any FOLC membership meeting.
It is time for the election of Friends of Lafitte Corridor (FOLC) Board of Directors. FOLC’s Board can consist of up to twenty-one directors that can hold office for three-year terms with no consecutive terms. You can see the current board on the FOLC website. Currently, there are seven positions available. We are seeking nominees for board members with the following qualities:
Interest in developing the Lafitte Corridor as an urban trail with multiple activity uses
Willingness to promote FOLC at meetings, events, and other venues
Willingness to assist or lead fundraising efforts to support FOLC operations
Ability to attend monthly FOLC meetings (missing three consecutive meetings results in automatic dismissal)
If you or someone you know possess these qualities, please feel free to nominate yourself or another person to be included on the ballot for Board elections. Send all submissions to, info@folc-nola.org.
The 2012 FOLC Board of Directors nominees are voted on by the attending membership at our next monthly meeting to be held on Thursday, January 26th at 6:30PM at First Grace Methodist Church, 3401 Canal Street at Jeff Davis in Mid-City.
NEW ORLEANS, LA – The City and the New Orleans Recreation Development Commission (NORDC) announced that three public meetings will be held to review proposed locations for a skate park. In October 2011, a skateboard ramp was donated to the City and NORDC.
The proposed locations for installation are Joe Brown Park, Behrman Memorial Park, or the Lafitte Greenway.
The three public meetings will be held in the New Orleans City Council chamber, 1300 Perdido Street, 1st floor, on the following dates:
Wednesday, December 21, 2011; 3:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m.
Wednesday, December 28, 2011; 10:00 a.m. – 12:00 noon
Wednesday, January 4, 2012; 3:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m.
Citizens are encouraged to attend and provide their input.
Our regularly scheduled FOLC meeting will NOT occur this Thursday. The meeting will be held on December 29th at 6:30pm at Grace Episcopal Church, 3700 Canal Street. All are welcomed.
On Wednesday, December 14, the Lafitte Corridor had a visitor — Ken Salazar, Secretary of the US Department of the Interior.
“Having Secretary Salazar visit the proposed Lafitte Corridor Greenway and recognize it as a project of national priority through the Urban Waters Federal Partnership yesterday was certainly appreciated by all of us who have been involved in this project,” according to Friends of Lafitte Corridor board member Lake Douglas. “Early on,” he continued, “local national Park Service staff helped get us get started, and now, we’re pleased that our efforts have resulted in this national exposure. Our on-going partnership with National Park Service staff will surely be a big help as we move into project implementation, interpretation, and management.”
The good folks at the Rails to Trails Conservancy have just released a community assessment on the current state of the Lafitte Corridor and how the greenway can be successfully brought to fruition.
If you haven’t taken a look yet, please venture over to the official greenway project website and check out the project documents. These are extremely important planning analyses that have been produced by Design Workshop. Please save these files and review them as your time permits. The “Existing Conditions Analysis” is really much more than that, looking in-depth at issues such as housing density and business inventory along the Corridor, and setting benchmarks for change by examining conditions along other urban greenways.
The city is also poised to spend $7 million in federal aid to turn a wide 3-mile stretch of an abandoned railroad easement between the French Quarter and City Park into a greenway that will be known as the Lafitte Corridor.
And also…
Charlie Doerr, the owner of Bayou Bikes along the proposed Lafitte Corridor greenway, still worries that money will dry up as Congress struggles to deal with the recession. He has pushed for the trail for years.
“The faster they get it started, the more likely it will happen,” he said, looking out the back of his shop where the trail would go. “What scares me is that that money has a deadline and it won’t get used. It’s happened before.”
Gift-giving come early: The Greenway is getting its next informational kiosk at N. Galvez and Lafitte Streets, anchored by The Sojourner Truth Neighborhood Center!
The build will take place on Saturday, November 5th and Sunday, November 6th. The N. Galvez kiosk utilizes all sorts of discarded NOLA materials, using mainly scrapped street signs in its design, put together by our friends at FutureProof.
You’ll be taking scrap like this…
…and making something beautiful.
Stay tuned for the exact times of the builds, we’ll be in contact soon as we pin down the finer details, and follow news on our twitter feed @folcnola.
Come one, come all, for as long or as little as you can make it, and celebrate the new kiosk and the future greenway with neighbors and friends!
Please feel free to respond with your questions or concerns. And invite anyone who you think might be interested in participating as well!
To whet your appetite, check out the photos of volunteers putting the finishing touch on the installation at Jeff Davis.
Thanks again to the Urban Conservancy for coordinating these builds.
