City Park's 1,300 acres hold tremendous potential as an urban oasis.

And the park is finally getting the resources needed to maximize its potential. With $3 million from private foundations and government agencies, park officials are poised to begin the transformation of an expanse of concrete into a lush gathering spot for New Orleanians.

The Great Lawn, as the 3-acre swath of land will be known, will connect the Peristyle and the Botanical Gardens on what now holds parking lots, aging tennis courts and post-storm trailers.

The creation of the green space, which is set to begin in December, will be the first step in the development of a larger swath of land that park officials hope will include an amphitheater and children's splash park.

Those projects don't yet have funding, but park officials hope that the transformation of the Great Lawn will prove to be a catalyst for fund-raising. If the lawn is as lovely as promised, that could well happen.

City Park's renaissance is an important piece of New Orleans' recovery. The park should be as lively and as integral to city life as New York City's Central Park. The famed green space in the middle of Manhattan is half the size of City Park, but it has been put to better use and kept in better shape.

Katrina, of course, did tremendous damage to City Park. So the park master plan that had been developed before the storm had to become a recovery plan as well. As devastating as the storm and levee breaches were, though, the disaster has increased awareness of the park's needs and has brought in a level of resources that might never have been tapped.

More than a dozen rebuilding projects have already been completed, including repairs to the field at Tad Gormley stadium, Storyland and other amenities. Park leaders have accumulated roughly $70 million in federal, state, city and philanthropic dollars to pay for dozens of projects, which is a level of work not seen since the Works Progress Administration hired 20,000 workers to create the park.

The Great Lawn is a small but important piece of the renewal.

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