Park Boulevard after beautification efforts.
June 23rd, 2009
Park Boulevard Beautification Project Update
By: Rosary Beck
Garden District neighbors are spending part of each weekend cleaning up the Park Boulevard medians: removing cast iron plants (which retain moisture that can rot tree trunks), raking, picking up trash, clearing sidewalks, and trimming low branches. Starting at the Government Street entrance and working south, we’re now down to Perkins.
This work is part of a design plan devised for Park Boulevard by Jon Emerson, registered landscape architect, GDCA board member, and beautification committee chair. Jon’s plan showcases the beauty of our live oaks, includes additional historic markers along Park and, if funding becomes available, entranceway lighting, irrigation to sustain a garden, and installation of additional Garden District signage—in the Craftsman style after our local architecture—at the City Park and Government Street entrances.
Steve Shurtz, urban forester with BRDPW and another GD neighbor, is arranging for the City to remove scrap trees, prune diseased tree branches, plant additional live oaks, improve cross-walks, and mulch the trees.
“Some of this is quite ambitious, but I think cleaning up this main artery and showing that we care about our public spaces will lead to others respecting the area too,” says GDCA board president Alex Tucker.
Donations to support this worthy project can be made at the Garden District website: www.gdcabr.org.
Beautification committee: Rosary Beck, Sarah Butler, Jon Emerson, Ray Mack, Alex Tucker.
Additional thanks to the clean-up crew: Case Ahr, Patrick Alderman, Ben Broussard, Sarah Butler’s mother Joyce, Diane Geheber, Marlene Little, and Mike Schexnayder.