The federal government ponied up almost $2 million recently so two of our best-looking landscapes can cut even better respective figures. Yesterday, the City Council officially accepted the $1.8 million that will go toward shoring up the Magnolia foot bridge on Bayou St. John, and making repairs to the streetscape on St. Charles Ave.

While the crisis at Le Petit Theatre has raged, another storied French Quarter landmark has also been having a hard spin of the financial wheel of luck. We know Canal Street's Chateau Bourbon as the hotel with the statue of Ignatius J. Reilly out front, and the clock on the front under which A Confederacy of Dunces begins. But the storied suite house, which opened as DH Holmes Dept. Store in 1849, was in a jam, until today.