NEW ORLEANS – Today, April 7, after more than 40 years of discussions, more than a decade of planning and a $30 million investment, New Orleans has become a true riverfront city with the grand opening of the Goldring Woldenberg Riverfront Park.Â
The new 6.3-acre linear park includes two lawns, a playground, two landscaped plazas and a covered entertainment area, where local speakers shared their thoughts in a program that started at 11 a.m.
With the recently revamped Audubon Aquarium and Insectarium in the background, Michael Sawaya, president and CEO of the Audubon Nature Institute, welcomed a large crowd of attendees and explained how the park “began as an ambitious idea to transform long underused industrial and commercial land along the Mississippi River into a world-class public space.”
“From Spanish Plaza to Crescent Park, New Orleans now boasts one of the longest continuous riverfront park systems in the entire country,” he added.
In her remarks, Mayor Helena Moreno praised Ron Forman as the visionary behind the park and former Mayor Mitch Landrieu for starting the project and shared her thoughts on what the park means to New Orleans.
“This is a real investment in the health of our city…in providing a better quality of life for the people of New Orleans,” she said. “This is an investment in economic development because as people come to visit this amazing and beautiful space, they’re also, of course, be coming to visit all the nearby businesses.”
Other speakers — including Freddie King, councilmember of District C; Bill Goldring, chair of the Sazerac Company; Jim Cook, president and CEO of the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center; and Walt Leger, president and CEO of New Orleans & Company, all shared their excitement for how they see the park affecting tourism and improving the quality of life for area residents.
The longest speech of the celebration was from former New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu, who noted his mother, Verna, and three siblings in attendance, joking that, “the other 35,000 Landrieus couldn’t make it.”
Landrieu noted that when his father, Moon Landrieu, began his tenure as mayor 56 years ago the area where the park now sits held wharfs and a big wall. “You could not get to the river,” he said.
“My father’s vision was that people should move to the water, not away from it,” he said. “And secondly, that we’re better together.”
Landrieu noted that, because of the sale of the Public Belt Railroad to the Port of New Orleans, “the city got the better deal. The city got 3 miles of continuous riverfront that no city in America has.”
