During 1999, the American Society of Landscape Architects celebrated their 100th anniversary. To commemorate this anniversary, the ASLA decided to renovate or create 100 parks and greenspaces across the country. ASLA's 47 Chapters contributed the planning, design, construction and maintenance of local parks ranging from inner-city playgrounds and therapeutic gardens to historic sites and community greenways.

1999 marked the 300th birthday of Baton Rouge, Louisiana. In honor of that celebration, the ASLA Louisiana Chapter in cooperation with the City of Baton Rouge, the State of Louisiana, Plan Baton Rouge and Baton Rouge Green, created a Capitol City Landscape Enhancement Master plan for the 7th Street Corridor. The enhancements were part of the city's downtown revitalization efforts, which did not originally incorporate landscape elements.

The location of Baton Rouge was discovered in 1699 during a French expedition headed by Pierre le Moyne. On Feb. 27, 1699 le Moyne chose a party to explore the site. The party reached a small stream at the right of the river that separated the hunting grounds of the Bayagoulas and the Oumas Indians, living on the Istrouma Bluffs.

The banks of the stream were separated by a reddened 30-foot-high maypole with several heads of fish and bear attached in sacrifice and dripping with blood that the natives had placed there to mark the land line between the two nations. Pierre le Moyne called this area Baton Rouge (French for red stick).

Baton Rouge has gone through many transformations. From an Indian village, to a sleepy river town, to what it is today as a major educational, governmental, and industrial center of the south.

With 300 years of history behind it, downtown Baton Rouge was in need of upgrades and greenspace. Last year implementation began on the master plan for a major tree planting effort in that area. With the help of local Landscape Architects, contractors, university students and community members, 300 trees were planted along 7th Street between North Boulevard and North Street and downtown historic neighborhoods Beauregard Town and Spanish Town. The state tree - the bald cypress, and the city tree - the crape myrtle were planted along with holly, elm, and tulip poplar.

"We had several hundred people involved in this project," said Baton Rouge's Director of Landscape and Forestry, Steve Shurtz. "The fact that the city and the community accepted this different concept was just great."

Along the corridor, large sections of concrete had to be removed to allow for better greenspace. Shurtz added that the community's acceptance of the sidewalk's being torn up really helped as the project moved on.

"For 30-40 years the city has had tree wells of 4 feet by 4 feet," he said. "We wanted to cut out spaces as long as we could so that the rooting space was greater."

The project is nearly concluded with 80-85 percent of it complete according to Shurtz. Through the winter, the young trees have survived, and in about a month all of the new green areas will be installed in the downtown corridor.

"With all of the landscape professionals and laymen involved it made the process a real value," Shurtz said. "Because of the success of this project, there are two new downtown projects in the works.

"This was a real strong project and what we learned here will be applied in our other projects downtown." LASN