Recently, the New Orleans City Council approved $750,000 to launch a Strategic Master Plan for Armstrong Park and the Municipal Auditorium. This fiscal move could significantly shape the future of one of the city’s most culturally sacred spaces.
Louis Armstrong Park is home to Congo Square, widely recognized as the birthplace of jazz and a historic gathering place for enslaved Africans and their descendants. The park also contains the long-shuttered Municipal Auditorium, a once-thriving cultural venue that has remained closed since Hurricane Katrina.
Throughout the years, OffBeat publisher Jan Ramsey has lamented the decline of Armstrong Park, expressing hope that an official commission with knowledgeable leadership would result in the betterment of the park for the entire New Orleans community.
“Armstrong Park—once part of the vibrant Treme neighborhood— was created in the 1960s when the city decided to build the Pontchartrain Expressway by leveling Claiborne Avenue, ultimately destroying the street, one of the most important streets in New Orleans’ African-American neighborhoods,” Ramsey wrote in 2016.
“The park’s high, rather intimidating iron fence has often been criticized for destroying the openness of the public park and has been a source of controversy since the park was constructed, as well as the parking which some advocates say should be green space. Armstrong Park also is the site of Municipal Auditorium, long the go-to venue for most all of the city’s Mardi Gras balls. But the Mardi Gras balls moved to the Rivergate Center (now the site of Harrah’s Casino) and then to the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center (ironically, Harrah’s set up shop in the Auditorium before it moved to its current location in the former Rivergate).”
According to the Council, the City will lead a community-driven planning process in partnership with the Save Our Soul Coalition (SOS) under a five-year agreement and with support from the Greater New Orleans Foundation. The Strategic Master Plan is intended to guide future capital improvements, cultural programming, and long-term stewardship of the site.
“This site holds a history of all New Orleans and the history of the United States of America,” Jackie Harris, with the Save Our Soul coalition, told WVUE Fox 8.
“Armstrong Park stands as a sacred cornerstone of New Orleans culture,” said District C Councilmember Freddie King III in a release from the Mayor’s Office. “As we embark on creating this master plan, we are committed to honoring our ancestors while opening doors to bold new ideas and meaningful opportunities for the next generation of culture bearers.” King added that the vision includes ensuring that cultural preservation translates into “real creative and economic opportunity” for the people of New Orleans, with inclusive leadership guiding the process.
Big Chief Dow Edwards of the Timbuktu Warriors, an SOS board member and member of the Congo Square Preservation Society, framed the funding as a cultural investment. “I think this is a significant step forward showing that the City of New Orleans truly supports the culture that brings the dollars to the city,” he said.
The approval signals alignment between the City Council and the Mayor’s Office around the future of Armstrong Park. What remains to be seen is how the community process unfolds — and how restoration, programming, and revenue generation will balance preservation with access, and history with economic realities.
For musicians, Mardi Gras Indians, culture bearers, and residents who have long called Congo Square home, the master plan will be more than a design document. It will be a test of how New Orleans chooses to steward its most sacred ground.
To read Jan Ramsey’s 2016 editorial on Armstrong Park, click here.
