Located in the upper French Quarter of New Orleans, Louisiana, Woldenberg Park has become an essential element of the modern city. Providing a setting for Audubon Aquarium of the Americas and Entergy Giant Screen Theater, it attracts residents and visitors for disparate but equally compelling reasons, enabling them to anything from experience an event to explore a monument to relax in a wide-open green space.
Named after Malcolm Woldenberg
Opened to the public before the 1984 World’s Fair, Woldenberg Park was named after philanthropist Malcolm Woldenberg. Woldenberg was an active civic leader in New Orleans’s Jewish community, which compelled the creation of the park as well as a statue that depicts him.
The park that runs alongside the Mississippi River features wide open green spaces as well as bricked walkways along the river that define the landscape. It is dotted with notable pieces of public art like the Monument to the Immigrant and “Ocean Song” but these pieces are just a few examples of landmarks that engage the surrounding community on multiple levels.
The New Orleans Holocaust Memorial Sculpture, created by Yaacov Agam, sits near the middle of the park. The “Fountain of Dancing Water” is a 90-foot linear fountain located on the Aquarium plaza. The fountain is accompanied by 30 varying lights for evening events, which is just one of the many that take place in the park, as various events take place throughout the year in Woldenberg Park. These range from a pre-curser to Jazz Fest to smaller, intimate concerts at the outdoor amphitheater. Large green spaces like the Berger Family Great Lawn have allowed the park to become home to several iconic New Orleans events, such as French Quarter Festival, Zulu Lundi Gras, and various New Orleans Fireworks Celebrations.
These features and events highlight how Woldenberg Park has become an essential element of the modern city, enabling it to have a special location in maps and guides to New Orleans. Doing so has connected it to a larger legacy of New Orleans.
A Legacy of Community and Connection Across New Orleans
Spanning 17 acres of green space, Woldenberg Park has become known as a place that allows audiences to relax in the natural settings of the area or experience the legacy of New Orleans and the modern community via a monument or event. This range of activity and ways to engage with the legacy of the city has come to positively impact the present and future of the entire region.
