Portion of New Orleans' MLK Boulevard neutral ground rededicated after yearlong improvement project
BY JEFF ADELSON | This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. APR 12, 2019 - 7:15 PM
Local redevelopment officials, art experts and business owners on Oretha Castle Haley Boulevard celebrated the rededication Friday of a portion of a neutral ground celebrating the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. following a more than yearlong project of improvements.
The newly refreshed neutral ground on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard between O.C. Haley and South Rampart Street now features a walking path, benches and landscaping, replacing the worn sidewalk and ragged grassy patches that formerly surrounded an unusual, 10-foot-tall bronze monument honoring King.
The sculpture — a modernist work by Frank Hayden installed eight years after King’s assassination in 1968, featuring an egg-shaped body marked with a bullet hole and crossed by multiple hands reaching out to one another — remains the centerpiece of the site.
Martin Payton, a visual artist, said the statue’s symbolism evokes themes of unity and brotherhood and is in keeping with the biblical commandment not to make graven images and King’s own wish not to be memorialized with his own image.
“King said, 'I don’t want you to worship my image. I want you to remember the principles I stood for,' ” Payton said.
The statue was controversial when it was first installed, something acknowledged by several of the speakers Friday, and eventually a second, more traditional statue of King was installed on South Claiborne Avenue.
The $333,000 improvement project on the neutral ground was funded through the state’s Office of Community Development and overseen by the New Orleans Redevelopment Authority.
It was done in time for this year’s Martin Luther King Jr. Day commemorations in January and served as the starting point for the city's annual march on that day. But Friday’s event served as formal recognition that the work had been completed.
The statue itself has been installed closer to ground level to make it more accessible, on a base that allows viewers to get close to the monument. Quotes from King that are inscribed inside the sculpture are repeated on benches and low walls along the neutral ground, which is framed with flowers.
“Love is going to trump hate: When this sculpture was done 40 years ago, that was the underlying message, and that’s the message today,” Councilman Jay H. Banks said.
The improvements to the neutral ground come as O.C. Haley has been undergoing a revitalization.
“We’ve gone from skid row to a Main Street model for the nation,” said Carol Bebelle, president of the O.C. Haley Boulevard Merchants and Business Association.
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