Once alight with bulbs that spelled out “Armstrong,” the large steel archway above North Rampart Street, across from the venerable Donna’s Bar & Grill, was dark much of the past decade, largely rusted. Beneath it, the main gate to a park named for trumpeter Louis Armstrong had been padlocked for more than three years, save for the occasional special event. Just inside, Congo Square — where two centuries ago enslaved Africans and free people of color spent Sundays dancing and drumming to the bamboula rhythm, seeding the pulse of New Orleans jazz — had been effectively off limits. The adjacent Mahalia Jackson Theater of the Performing Arts, home to opera and ballet performances for more than 30 years, sat empty and in need of repair after taking on 14 feet of water in 2005.

It would be hard to find a more potent symbol of the tenuous state of musical life and cultural history in a city largely defined by both. But earlier this month, shortly after dusk, Mayor C. Ray Nagin flipped a switch — just a prop, it turned out, for dramatic effect — and on went the lights of the arch and the park’s streetlamps. As the Original Pin Stripe Band played “Bourbon Street Parade,” a small mock second-line parade wound its way around a bronze statue of Armstrong and over to a sparkling Mahalia Jackson Theater for a free concert, the first in a series of events spanning 10 days and a broad range of performing arts.

AP Photo/Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra, Judi Bottoni

Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra performing at the refurbished Mahalia Jackson Theater.

“The cultural arts of New Orleans are back bigger, better and stronger than ever before,” Mayor Nagin had said at an afternoon press conference. “This is the start of what I predict will be a year of unprecedented construction in the city.”

William Chrisman, the city’s capital-projects administrator, estimated the theater renovation’s cost at $22 million, with the park restoration adding an additional $5 million. FEMA, which initially denied funding, has pledged to reimburse $9 million. John Quirk, who oversees the federally owned National Jazz Historical Park — three leased acres within Armstrong Park — hopes to complete his renovations late this year.

The Arts Come Marching In Again – WSJ.com.

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