An Ambitious Plan For New Orleans' Riverfront

"It's called "Reinventing the Crescent," a nearly $300 million plan for giving the public access to several miles of New Orleans riverfront that have long been inaccessible because of warehouses and cargo-handling activities.

It envisions the riverfront, shorn of most of its once-ubiquitous metal sheds, as a place for walking, jogging, dining, celebrating, worshipping, relaxing and even living.

City Council President Arnie Fielkow has called the ambitious plan "the most exciting project the city has seen in decades, maybe in its history."

On the other hand, it has aroused deep suspicion among some neighborhood activists, and both port officials and some private developers have problems with parts of it.

Yet many New Orleanians, accustomed to grandiose visions that eventually dissipate, probably suspect that the whole plan is just another pie-in-the-sky project that will never move beyond the pretty-pictures stage.

A city agency on Monday will receive proposals to begin the process of turning the pictures into reality, but most of the money needed to implement the $294 million blueprint remains more hope than reality."