What’s the Fate of Congo Square?

We were recently interviewed about the proposed move of City Hall to Congo Square in Armstrong Park. Community members are leery about what kind of access they will have to one of the city’s most sacred sights if the move happens. As it stands, residents of the Treme are given limited access to Armstrong Park. It’s a very rare occasion for the entrance on the corner of Henriette Delille and St. Phillip St. to be open.

Congo Square is the sight of several annual festivals, monuments celebrating New Orleans West African heritage, and a weekly commemoration of the gathering that happened here on Sundays in the colonial period by the Congo Square Preservation Society.

One things clear…there needs to be open dialogue between the developers of the property, community stakeholders, and our city’s cultural bearers. Once a part of the Treme neighborhood, Armstrong Park was created on land where homes were knocked down during Urban Renewal developments.

Is moving City Hall a continuation of developments like the construction of the I-10 overpass that destroyed a bustling African American commercial district along Claiborne Ave? Or will the move advance the traditions, history, and commercial well being of the local African American community?

-Pierre