Art from Ashes...

...and a local artist's hope to revive Princess Park and SRAC's home offices.

If you have anything, any stories, any files, any information that can go in book no. 2. on Princess Park.  They will be history. Now that there is email, it is easier to get the word out.  If you would like to write in  and do not have email and you would like to write a letter about your memories of the park, please mail to 555 Herndon, Shrevport, la.  71101.  I will be waiting to hear from you.

Below is a rough draft written by Dorothy Kristin Hanna, meaning I am not worried about the sentence structure.  Written as I speak.

To The Times:

Three days ago, the Land of Princess Park, became once more- a barren of unlovely waste.  That is what it was in 1870, when a woman named Mary Cane gave the land to the city.  Little did we know that years later..... down  in New Orleans a woman named Gertrude was marrying a man named Carol Prince.  Carol Prince died 2 years after the knot was tied and Gertrude came to Shreveport, to marry a man, Mr. Ardis.  Mr. Ardis had a seed company and Mrs. Prince was no longer Mrs. Prince, she was now crowned with the name, Mrs. Ardis.  Mrs. Ardis in her boldness, must have been very instrumental, or possible carried the name close to her heart, for when she met with the women of Shreveport, things began to change.  The change had a goal.  They wanted to be in charge of this Land, deeded to the city by a woman.  Now think about this.  This was the year, 1890 and women wanted to do something, on their own, like create the City's first Park.....    Well, when they were thinking about what to call it, I certainly would have loved to have been at the table.   The name Prince must have been brought up, for that was Gertrude's name.  Gertrude, must have loved her name.  For the Park, the barren of unlovely waste......  was crowned with the name, Princess Park.

Princess Park.  Oh what a beautiful title.  So, the women, actually pioneered the first woman's movement in Shreveport and did everything......  to create a beautiful park, with 80 shade tree's, lovely pavillions and cazebo's for dance, music and solitude in the middle of the city.  To be with green grass and wonderful perenial shrubs indigenous to Louisiana.  Peace.   Just a bit of outdoor beauty in the middle of the city, honoring a place for downtown business men to meet their families for picnics to watch the children play.  And that is exactly what they did.  These women gathered with the women of the small town and it is to be said, that the making of Princess Park was a major part of the transformation that took Shreveport from a small town to a city.  Imagine that a city, that was modeling itself after the big city of New Orleans.

Gertrude on the completion of her creation, was crowned royally for her civic duties.  Nothing could have been done with out the help of all the women in the community.  The Park has a long history from that moment on.

The Park became a place of rest in the 40's for soliders to get off the train, get some rest and be nurtured by the community.  The building was built, that just burned this past week.

The inside was beautiful.  I myself, created the foundation for a new dance form called, Arodasi inside that building, with footage of  at least 75 performances inside that building.  Luther Cox, held classes in the building, for Modern Dance.  Jan Van Horn, taught forever in the building...  and I am sure there were many others.  The building and the land, have always housed Music, Dance. Art and Compassion.  It has nurtured the hearts and souls of the community since  1890 and it represents an area, where people must pass through in order to go downtown.  It is one gateway into the downtown area.

There is absolutely no reason and no reason at all, with all the space around it in the city, that it should ever be used for anything but a park.  A park to continue in the spirit of the first Women's Movement.  A place of beauty, a place of rest, a gathering place for the arts.  An attraction.  It is the only park land that can be seen from I-20.

In 1995 Mayor Hazel Beaird signed a document to turn the park into a city jail.  I was dancing there and it was like living a dream to have a beautiful dance room like the one inside the building.  Red brick walls, Glitter Chandeliers that were made by a craft class in the building, that actually worked beautiful.  Three chandeliers adorned the room, that looked like big wedding cakes, that sparkled.  The wooden floor gave a bit, so one could jump and jump, leap and dance and the knees could handle it beautifully.  It was not like dancing on concrete.  It was wonderful.  And it was going to be demolished.

Torn down.  Gone.

Well, over my dead body was it going to be torn down.  I sat on the microfilms at the L.S.U. Library and began the search and found the above history.  Held meeting with the mayor, with Dan Garner, Alan Dyson, Bruce Allen and Mike Harold,  The other women had turned into men.  And then marched the soccer fields and got 1,200 signatures and took them to the city council meeting with the help of Dee Peterson.  A statement that Dee Peterson said back in 1994, that it would be wonderful to " the land was so important in the middle of an impoverished neighborhood."  And I will never forget, Roy Cary.  He pounded his hand on the desk and said, "What about it Mayor Hazel Beaird, you're the first Woman Mayor and you want to tear down and destroy the first Woman's Movement, 100 years to the date that it was created.    She said, "No."  Thank you, Hazel.

And that is when the Arts Council moved in.  Interesting enough, the Arts Council is mainly spear headed by women.  That seems to be appropriate for the land.

Then in April 2009, I though it was a good time in my life to bring the project back up and file the papers about Princess Park into a book form.  For the Parks and Recreation and for the Arts Council and for me.  I called a couple of people such as Eric Brock, Luther Cox and researched to find living relatives of the women in Shreveport, that were related to the women from 1890.  I added a little more to the original papers, went and got that little pink folder, with papers falling out from the Council and put together 10 books, that the Council allowed me to run off on their paper and bound together the book in their meeting room.  Thank you.......   It is a good thing, that I brought it back up, for the ashes from that little pink file would   not have been easy to decipher after the fire.    Pam called  and gave me her stamp of approval, on the bounded information, tilted, "The Plea for Princess Park", with the layout of the first aerial, original design for the park. back in 1890.  Kathy Kennedy, assistant to Shelly, the Parks and Recreation Director has been very kind and has embraced my research.  She and Shelly have the book in hand now.

 Although, Pam wanted me to drop a copy to the Mayor, I was waiting for my son's first idea about how the whole park should be recreated to be Unusual. I thought I would honor his graduation from architecture.  His name is William Hanna Hargrove and he can not find a architecture job in New Orleans so I thought this would be an opportunity for him, to create the first ideas.  He was working with the idea of redesigning the whole land.  Imagining.  The drawings were almost finished and he was sending them in the next week or so.  Now that is unusual and kinda strange.

We as a community owe it to the Women of the Past and the present day women and the women of the future and the city called Shreveport, that is definitely on the grow.  to keep Princess Park, Princess Park.  Do not let the land be used for anything else. We must honor the history of the land, of the first woman's movement and the idea's of their original intention for the land.   It must keep stay it's original intention, for it was Shreveport's first Park.  Princess Park should always be called Princess Park.

I propose to create "The Most Unusual Park in America"  with a Princess Crown around the Park and a very swanky, green- efficient- contemporary building that enbodies the essence of some 1890 architecture, with offices in a beautiful setting, housing our instrumental "ARts Council, that leads the City and makes sure we do not become a robot-ish community, that honors the differences between people, art projects and community designs and ideas.  They have allowed Shreveport to be a breeding ground for creativity, in full support of the creations of the individual artist.

The Gardens should be well tended by Schools.  The children will learn through Garden Work, to care for the land.  Signs should be in front of each Garden honoring that school and those children.  The 80 Shade trees should come back.  And Sculpture should be there.  to go with the essence of the Park's Environment and the City.  And there should be our park.  Princess Park.  Don't let the history be destroyed.  Lets create  beauty in the middle of the city, as a gateway to downtown Shreveport.  Working with the theme, "The Most Unusual Park in America."