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City announces plans for former confederate sites

Public input for Lee Circle will happen later

By Eric Craig
A towering statue of P.G.T. Beauregard stood at the Wisner-side entrance of City Park.
Photo by Eric Craig/Curbed NOLA

Yesterday, Mayor Mitch Landrieu spoke on plans regarding the four confederate monument the city removed in the spring of 2017.

The conversion process of the former confederate sites will be led by the Ford Foundation, Colloqate Design, and other “community partners,” according to the City. While there will be some room for public input, the City expects all beautification projects to be complete by fall of 2018. No officials have mentioned any official plans for the four former confederate sites.

At Lee Circle in the Central Business District, the City of New Orleans will “perform beautification work at the site of the former Robert E. Lee statue” and will leave the statue’s former column standing. The plans for the former site at Lee Circle will be the only confederate site that will take public input.

The City Park Improvement Association will remove the P.G.T. Beauregard pedestal that faces City Park and overhaul the site.

At the former site of the Jefferson Davis Monument in Mid-City, which was removed in May of 2017, the City of New Orleans will place a freestanding American flag.

In the French Quarter, the site that held the Battle of Liberty Place monument will remain untouched.

“Over the last few years, momentum has gained across our nation to have a long overdue discussion on the appropriateness of confederate monuments in our communities, and New Orleans was at the forefront of this recent movement,” Landrieu said in an official release. “We must never forget that these monuments celebrate the ‘Lost Cause of the Confederacy,’ that they are a perversion of history – placed in prominent locations in our communities to paint a false narrative of our shared history.”