City, Main Street to dedicate Mary Mahoney park

Main Street Biloxi and the City of Biloxi on Monday at 9:30 a.m. will dedicate a new downtown park in memory of longtime restaurateur and civic leader Mary Mahoney. The ceremony will be open to the public.

City workers this morning were installing a five-foot Victorian fountain at the park site, at Rue Magnolia and Water Street, in front of the Mardi Gras Museum and across from Mary Mahoney’s Old French House Restaurant.

“Mary Mahoney was a colorful and charming woman,” Mayor A.J. Holloway said. “Through the years, she served presidents at the White House, and, in her restaurant, a who’s who of the entertainment and corporate worlds. And on the business side, she was a successful trailblazer in what in the early days was a man’s world.”

Mahoney was the first female president of the Biloxi Chamber of Commerce and supported numerous civic and artistic endeavors. She died in 1985. A year later, Purdue University established a scholarship in her name in its Restaurant, Hotel, and Institutional Management Institute “to perpetuate among a younger generation her greatness in our industry and the gratitude, respect, and esteem the industry holds for her.”

Mary Mahoney Park will feature extensive landscaping, a brick walkway, several benches and a Victorian fountain. The project was initiated by Main Street and designed by Guild Hardy Associated Architects. Site work was performed by America Civil Contractors, the city’s Parks and Recreation Department and the horticulture department of Beau Rivage Resort & Casino.

The $20,000 project was funded by Main Street, the city, the Mahoney and Cvitanovich families, and Beau Rivage. A number of benches remain available for sponsorship, at $300 each.

For more information on downtown redevelopment and benches please call Main Street Biloxi at 435-6339 or via e-mail.