Oak Street has a long history in New Orleans’ retail history. My mama used to shop there all the time, and I can remember going to the stores when I was a little girl. Oak was one of the “shopping streets” in New Orleans, along with Dryades (commercial area now renamed after Oretha Castle Haley) and Freret streets. But the streets’ shopping appeal declined over the years with the rise of the suburbs and the development of malls.

After Katrina, merchants in neighborhoods started taking responsibility for marketing their shopping destinations; Magazine Street merchants have done an outstanding job of coalescing their efforts. Such it was with Oak Street, which was named of the city’s “main streets,” and received funding from the state to start a process of renewal and marketing.

Thus the birth of art markets, farmers’ markets and neighborhood festivals such as the Gretna Heritage Festival, Bayou Boogaloo, Freret Street Festival and Market, and the Po-Boy Preservation Fest on Oak Street, among many, many more. The purpose is to draw people back to these destination streets and to the merchants who populate them.

Oak Street’s Po-Boy Preservation Fest has been an outstanding success; in fact, it’s been crowded to the point of being very uncomfortable, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing when you’re trying to use a festival to increase traffic for businesses located on the street. So the promoters of the festival and the director of the Oak Street effort thought they’d have more room for the throngs if they moved the Po-Boy Fest to Palmer Park, at the corner of Carrollton and Claiborne (where the Arts Market is held once a month). The organizers proposed barricading off the park and charging a $5 admission to attend the festival.

But the merchants on Oak Street who have hosted the “PoBoy Festival” in New Orleans for the past three years decided they want the festival to stay located where it started—on Oak Street. This isn’t a big surprise considering the free event was started to help their businesses. Yesterday, the Oak Street Merchants, Residents and Property Owners (a group different from the Oak Street Main Street originators of the Po-Boy Fest) announced that the they were putting on their own “Oak Street Festival.”

Ralph Driscoll, president of the association announced that Hank Staples of the Maple Leaf would be the festival’s coordinator. The media and press contact is Byron Hughey,  who’s on the board of the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Foundation, and is the originator of the Creole Tomato Fest in the French Market.

Staples announced that there will be three stages of music, with Rebirth Brass Band headlining, 35 restaurants participating and two art market areas. In the past, the festival on Oak Street was limited to about four blocks, but Staples said the festival area will be expanded considerably to thin out crowds. “It will be bike-friendly, and that the group is in discussion with the Regional Transit Authority to increase streetcar schedules during the day of the festival,” said Staples. The upcoming Oak Street Festival is set for Sunday November 14.

In the meantime, the “Po-Boy Preservation Festival” has not yet announced  a date of its relocation to Palmer Park.