City Park

My Top 3

I don’t know all the details to the recent proposals for “development” of New Orleans’ City Park. Some of them, like the TV station idea, seemed like a bit of a stretch. But in the main I’m sympathetic with Stephanie Grace, who suggests that New Orleanians should be open to adding a few new attractions to the park that would increase public usage and bring in more money to make the place financially solvent.

At 1300 acres, City Park is one of the largest urban parks in the nation. Currently, it is struggling to recover from flood damage, and we’re relying on dedicated volunteers (13 year olds, in some cases) for needed maintenance. I’m willing to “compromise” a few acres of green space for an income-generating golf course or children’s museum (and the accompanying parking lots). I think “restore the park don’t develop it” is a false choice, since there’s currently not enough money to “restore” the park, and because the park’s master plan calls for additional development (like an amphitheater and skate park).

Just, please, when you develop a portion of the park, . A GREAT example of “doing it right” is the Besthoff sculpture garden which is truly… beyond praise. It is placed next to the New Orleans Museum of Art (another great development) which recently enjoyed a fine write-up in the Wall Street Journal which I will excerpt at length:

Founded in 1910 by Isaac Delgado, a Jamaican immigrant who became a millionaire sugar broker, and who wanted a “temple of art for rich and poor alike,” the museum sits in still-beautifully lush City Park. The relatively simple neo-classical building, designed by Chicago architect Samuel Marx, was opened in 1911 and, eschewing celebrity architecture, subsequent additions have retained the elegant primacy of the original central wing. Developing an encyclopedic collection in a relatively small Southern city has not been easy, and yet, appropriate to the city’s heritage, among the over 40,000 works there are wonderful examples of French art by Monet, Gauguin, and of course Degas (painted in 1872-73, while he was visiting New Orleans relatives), as well as other European, American, African, Asian and pre-Columbian works. The decorative arts collections are among the best-displayed in the country, with an exceptionally rich array of American and European glass and American art pottery– the latter another local specialty (Newcomb Pottery). Bucking the musical-chairs trend that characterizes museum directorships, the New Orleans Museum of Art can also boast that its highly respected director, John Bullard, has been at the helm for a record 34 years (beating out the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Philippe de Montebello as America’s longest-serving art museum director).
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Concurrently the lure of the for-profit world’s salary structure is attracting museum workers who would rather make big bucks than beg for contributions from those who have already made them. But at the post-Katrina New Orleans Museum of Art there are other priorities, all of which are reminders of what used to be the primary activities of most museums. Two years after Katrina, this museum might well be the most vibrant silver lining in the Big Easy’s still-hovering cloud.

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One time a Japanese tourist walking out of NOMA saved my life with a cold can of Fanta, but that’s a story for another post.