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Quarter Calamondins

It is once again time (11th year!) for me to climb the small fruit tree at the corner of the BK museum garden, pick what is reachable, and answer a LOT of questions from passers by.

(2016) Over the years, I have kept an eye on the citrus tree in the corner of the garden of Mrs. Parkinson-Keyes’ house at Ursuline and Chartres, which looks like a kumquat tree. Some years, it is so laden down with fruit in January that it hangs low enough to pick some on the street side. Almost all winter, the sidewalk is slick with fallen fruit, mushed by the feet of those on their way to Croissant D’Or or to Royal Street and beyond.

A little over a year ago, I decided to contact the director of the Beauregard-Keyes Museum  to see if they would allow me to pick the fruit. I emailed them and almost immediately received a reply, “Dear neighbor, I received your request to pick our tree-but I must tell you that it is not a kumquat, but a calamondin tree. If you still would like the fruit, feel free to come in the garden after we open each day and help yourself! We only pick a small amount around the holidays to put on gifts so there is always plenty.”

After looking up calamondins, here is what I found:

Camondin, Citrus mitis, is an acid citrus fruit originating in China, which was introduced to the U.S. as an “acid orange” about 1900.   This plant is grown more for its looks than for its fruit edibility and performs well as a patio plant or when trimmed as a hedge. It is hardy to 20 degrees F.  and is hardier to cold than any other true citrus specie—only the trifoliate orange and the kumquat are more tolerant to low temperatures.    The edible fruit is small and orange, about one inch in diameter, and resembles a small tangerine.

The fruit is  smaller than a typical lime, have a thinner skin, and seem best used within a week after harvest if not refrigerated.  When picking the fruit, it is best to use clippers or scissors to get them off of the tree, rather than pulling them. This will keep the stem end of the fruit from tearing, which promotes deterioration.

The juice of the calamondin can be used like lemon or lime to make refreshing beverages, to flavor fish, to make cakes, marmalades, pies, preserves, sauces and to use in soups and teas.   The juice can be frozen in containers or in ice cube trays, then storing the frozen cubes in plastic freezer bags.  Use a few cubes at a time to make calamondinade.   The juice is primarily valued for making acid beverages. It is often employed like lime or lemon juice to make gelatin salads or desserts, custard  pie or chiffon pie. In the Philippines, the extracted juice, with the addition of gum tragacanth as an emulsifier, is pasteurized and bottled commercially. This product must be stored at low temperature to keep well.  The juice of the calamondin also makes an excellent hair conditioner.  Pour 1 liter of boiling water over thinly sliced fruit.  Let it steep.  When water is cool, pour through the hair as a final rinse.  The fruit juice is used in the Philippines to bleach ink stains from fabrics. It also serves as a body deodorant.   Rubbing calamondin juice on insect bites banishes the itching and irritation. It bleaches freckles and helps to clear up acne vulgaris and pruritus vulvae. It is taken orally as a cough remedy and antiphlogistic.  Slightly diluted and drunk warm, it serves as a laxative. Combined with pepper, it is prescribed in Malaya to expel phlegm. The root enters into a treatment given at childbirth. The distilled oil of the leaves serves as a carminative with more potency than peppermint oil.

 

 

I asked a few of my foraging friends if they wanted to come along and my chef pal Anne Churchill is the one person who almost always takes me up on it. She and I bring a ladder in her old creaky truck and climb up with bags (actually she brings bus tubs from her kitchen)  and snip away. We catch up as we work and discuss the health of the tree and answer questions from passersby.

Over the last few years, I have harvested 3-5 gallons of citrus at least 8-10 times, as has Anne. I make it into syrups and share that and the fruit with friends, including the chef at Meauxbar, Kristen Essig, who I used to work with at the farmers market organization.

Today, I actually bought my 10-foot tree pruner and cut more of the old growth away and more from the street side: being alone this time and on that side meant I had many more interactions, including a scowling neighbor who asked if I had permission, one of the museum volunteers who seemed confused by my explanation that I was a neighbor and not their landscaper and many visitors who wanted to know more about the tree, about the house and about other random things.

It is my great pleasure to work in the sun, in my beautiful neighborhood and share the bounty of the trees and plants put here by our previous generations.

 

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They just added this bower for a recent event, likely a wedding.

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A close up of one of the calamondins

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December’s haul (actually half of it) as I wash the fruit first

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Cooking the calamondins. I cook them for a very long time, with honey, cayenne pepper and satsuma juice added.

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Finished product

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Me up in the tree in 2014

 

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Entrepreneurial Jackson Square part 2: WPA

I continue to do research on the history of the square in terms of how it has been used and reworked by entrepreneurs, including the Baroness herself.

Last January was my month to dive deeply into the city archives to find new visual clues and records to bring alive the last 170 years of the Upper Pontalba. I was able to review the rental and management documents for the building at the New Orleans Public Library…

I am hoping THIS January I can unlock the key to gaining access to the state archives to be able to research the Lower Pontalba in the same detail.

Happy to find a photo of the Works Progress Administration (WPA) era renovation of the buildings as that project had the largest influence on the buildings and the Square in their history- so far.

WPA renovation 1930s of Upper Pontalba. Courtesy of the City Archives Repository

The WPA had an enormous impact on the entire city, and one could argue that it set the table for the population explosion, (which peaked at 627,000 around 1960), and the subsequent media attention that New Orleans had through the post war years,

By most accounts, New Orleans was in the top 5 in terms of completed projects through this Roosevelt administration initiative, most notably City Park where many WPA plaques and motifs can still be seen.

The Pontalbas received about $300,000 in repairs through the WPA, a staggering sum for 2 buildings that had been purchased just a few years earlier by preservationists for (likely) around 1/3 of that cost.

They had been built 80 years before for a total cost of about $330,000 and held by the Pontalba family in France through 3 generations before selling the Upper (St. Peter side) to Alfred Danzinger, Jules D. Dreyfous, and William Runkel in 1920, and the Lower (Saint Ann side) in 1922 to William Radcliffe Irby. Irby bought the Lower building for 68,000 and when he passed in a few years later, deeded it to the Louisiana State Museum.

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(Historic) Faces of the Square

1912 Pontalba resident
Shoeshine boy
Vieux Carre Commission 1970s
Postcard of Pirates Alley, 1955 – 1965, Express Publishing Co. Inc., courtesy The Historic New Orleans Collection
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JSE: Before Retail Returned to the Upper Pontalba

Seeing visual clues about how the buildings and the open square have been designed and used and redefined during that 170 years is amazing. This pic was taken right before retail shops returned to the Upper Pontalba. Notice the sash windows on the ground floor! *Notice it is also still a road and not yet made into the permanent pedestrian mall.

1973 courtesy of the Vieux Carre Commission, photographer unknown

The lower Pontalba DID have some retail throughout the 20th century including the 1850 house and Tourist Center, the latter opening in 1965.

The letter to the editor below from the same year that the picture was taken indicates the tension that often arises between preservationists and entrepreneurs:
“The commission’s decision to restore the first floor shops was to bring back to the building and Jackson Square the kind of activity and occupancy originally envisioned by the Baroness Pontalba when she erected these buildings. No ‘tourist’ shops will be allowed. Only shops which will be patronized locally..””

[N.B. Henry M. Krotzer, Jr. was employed by the firm Koch & Wilson.]
— Source: Times-Picayune Author: Henry M. Krotzer, Jr., architect Date: Saturday, April 7th 1973.

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2-year eviction of Upper Pontalba residents

As someone who lived in the building until recently and as someone who has spent the last decade researching the rich history of these buildings and their effect on our public square, lets just say I am deeply interested in the recent news that the residents of the 50+ apartments on the city-managed Pontalba (St. Peter side) have informed its residents that they will all need to vacate the building while a long renovation is done.

First, let’s get to the facts and do away with the misinformation about this building:

  1. It’s all rentals, no owners. The city was given this building back in the 30s by the preservationists who bought it and saved it from likely destruction.
  2. Essentially each of the Pontalba buildings was designed as 16 3-story townhouses, each with their own entrances. They do share infrastructure between them but any of the 16 can be easily closed off from the others.
  3. The rents are not astronomical but are in line with current rents around FQ. For example, the large one-room efficiencies are around 900 a month.*
  4. The apartments are lovely, and have updated modern kitchens, bathrooms and HVAC.
  5. There are a large number of full-time residents some of whom have been there for decades and have invested thousands of their own dollars in repairs and upgrades.
  6. There is not a years-long waiting list. There are often empty apartments which are first offered to residents, then to folks who sign up at the office to be contacted, then a larger search is undertaken (they say they do this phase, although I have never seen any evidence of it online). If someone on the contact list doesn’t reply, they are taken off the list (although that list seems to a bit of a snarl in terms of who manages it and how well it is maintained. That is based on feedback I have received from those on the list.)
  7. The staff is generally wonderful. For example, the men and women who do the custodial and minor repairs are caring and smart folks, many of whom have worked there for decades. (It has also been recently suggested in casual conversations that those positions might instead be independent contractors and not staff positions, which might mean new folks who know less and likely care less about the building to “come by” and deal with stuff.)

There are definitely some big issues such as the roof damage from Hurricane Ida to be dealt with, but the renovations seem to be more about “upgrading” the building. Again, very little in writing is given to residents or neighbors so this is based on my own conversations with staff and reading emails sent by various people connected with the building.

Residents seem willing to work with the renovation, even moving for short periods to other apartments. As a matter of fact, while I lived there, I asked where my latest lease renewal was and was told that since they may need to move us to another apartment, they were holding off on assigning us a lease for a specific apartment. So it was clearly an idea they were also working with at the time.

The issue with removing all residents for upgrades and roof repair is that many of them will not be able to find another space nearby. I think of neighbors who were service industry folks who worked later shifts and came home around 4 in the morning after work. Finding a space that is safe and quiet for folks like that is very nearly impossible in a neighborhood with so many illegal airbnbs operating.

Another question is if emptying it out is even needed. If you live and rent in the FQ, you have worked with landlords who need to do major repairs to these old buildings. I have never (not has anyone I know) had a landlord suggest I needed to leave for years to do those repairs.

And certainly important, is that they are losing 2 years of income.

There has been little information on this topic given in writing, including the actual plans of what is to be done.

In civic activist Jane Jacobs’ parlance, having mixed use and spaces made for people and not for massive development or infrastructure is necessary for a vibrant city. Those who live on the square happily share it with artists, readers, musicians, and others because all are needed to keep it dynamic and useful to the city. The residents are there after the shops close and the museums are shuttered, keeping an eye and an ear on late night activities, sharing information with the Square’s daytime users. It’s a delicate balance, and one that generally works.

Lastly, through my research on entrepreneurial activity in Jax Square, I have found that over the last 170 years, the residents of the buildings have almost always taken pride and care in living there. There have been times that it has housed people of civic stature, other times it had the workers or those newly arrived to the city, and very often, the creative and the enterprising have found their muse there.

That contribution cannot be overstated, especially in a neighborhood that is so physically important and so socially necessary. Let’s do better sharing what is planned and working with the residents and neighborhood to make this renovation helpful.

1940 map of the building. Note there were apartments even on the first floor.

* I would even suggest that the city seriously consider the idea I have raised here many times: that offering owners incentives to build in a few rent-controlled spaces for the service industry in the smaller units in these buildings and throughout the commercial areas of the Quarter and Canal Street would be a game changer for the neighborhood vitality, for employers, and for the city.

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snow day

historic day. 10 inches of snow in less than 11 hours.

mid day accumulation. still had 5 hours more.
Jackson Sq still doing its part to be for residents and tourists alike.
i’ve done some time
in winter climates can you tell?
ellenmacomber.com
gutters straining under weight
snow turned to ice on Wednesday
old school gas fireplace
Stanley’s gumbo
my kale cornbread
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Dear CM Moreno: Change Canal Street and prioritize pedestrians

As the likely incoming Mayor I ask of you:

With the news of the horrific car fatalities on Bourbon Street on NYE, it’s ONCE AGAIN time for us to rework the river end of Canal. The issues of terrorism are far more than I am equipped to assist on, but I do know the Quarter as well as anyone who has grown up, worked, and roamed it. I’ve written about it many times. These are just the most appropriate of those ideas for this latest vehicle as a murder weapon.

Here I go again.

Severely limit car traffic from the river to Rampart on Canal after dusk daily.

Reduce non-resident car parking in French Quarter.

invest in a permanent, state of the art bollard system.

don’t use this act to over police the unhoused, workers, or people of color.

Incentivize streetcar and taxi use by offering better and more stands or safe spaces to call for one.

More incentivized bike rentals (Blue Bikes), more bike cabs, safer bike parking.

Update taxi rules to match the Uber style wild west of ride hires. Allow taxis to pick up hailers.

Incentivize more buses along Rampart and Burgundy moving downtown through neighborhoods.

We need to incentivize the rework of the under-used, upper floors on Canal Street to be rent controlled for service industry/musician residents to balance the massive numbers of tourists and allow people to live near by.

Ramp up enforcement of building owners cleaning in front and keeping flow clear.

Bring in Feds to uncover bribes to officials that reduce enforcement.

Overall, safeguard and prioritize pedestrians and human-powered transportation in all of the ways we can.

That is one of the main issues that faces the French Quarter, and has for decades. This latest tragedy is just the latest one to underscore this truth.

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Entrepreneurial Jackson Square

The cultural and political significance of the square has already been well researched and widely published, all of it illustrating its role over the 300+ year history of New Orleans. Many writers have highlighted its colonial role as a military parade grounds, and others have focused on its development into its current role as the chief tourist mecca for the more than 10 million visitors the city hosts annually. Few writers however, focus on the individuals that have and continue to shape this square, doing so as builders, philanthropists, artists, activists, residents, and more.

Since the archives of written pieces on that history exists, this series of articles will instead focus on how entrepreneurs have used the Square since 1850. That date was chosen because it is when the Almonaster/Pontalba family added its final (of many previous) contributions to the Square with the iconic 4-story red brick buildings that still anchor the upper (west) and lower (east) sides of the Square. The buildings built by Micaela Almonaster Pontalba, a native daughter of the city who sailed back to France after they were completed never to return, set the scale and rhythm of how the Square conducts business to this very day.

Baroness Pontalba herself will be one of the entrepreneurs that this series will celebrate, as her efforts are a perfect prologue for the modern uses of the Square. Her half-decade long development of the two Pontalba buildings will center this story, as will the later generations of the Pontalba family who could not withstand the late 19th century and early 20th century abandonment of the square by the city’s elite. Luckily for them, others stepped in once again to keep the Square a democratic and dynamic place.

Even though the buildings remain the most significant contributor to how commerce is conducted in these 2.5 acres, the Baroness’ original plan for their use has to be considered an almost total failure. Instead, in true New Orleans fashion, the Square’s users adapted them through philanthropic intervention, city, state and federal oversight, and the sheer vehemence of New Orleanians who saw their value. These interventions happened at various times over the last 170 years, often at the last possible moment before demolition would have invariably led to the loss of the Square’s daily activity.