The Department of Parks and Parkways, formerly known as the Parkway and Park Commission, has operated in the City of New Orleans since the early 1900s. The digitized 40th Anniversary report (clock on the image to the right to view) offers an overview of the history of the department that researchers will find useful when navigating these records.

The 2000 accession includes seven bound volumes containing the official minutes of the Parkway Commission meetings; various documents relating to Commissioners, their terms of office, and their activities; photographs of Commissioners and Commission activities; and other materials. The records document the functions of the Commission and its members, not of the administration and staff working under the body's direction.

The 2002 accession came to the Archives as part of outgoing Mayor Marc Morial's "Legacy Project." It includes twelve boxes of correspondence/subject files, four boxes of publication collected by the Commission and its staff from various sources, two boxes of motion picture films, and seventeen volumes of manuscript records. Included in this accession were some records from the predecessor agencies to the Park and Parkway Commission, records of the Superintendent and staff of the agency, and records of the later Department of Parks and Parkways. Many of the extant records date from the Superintendency of Florence Schornstein. The records filed under Ms. Schornstein's name include materials relating directly to her work with Parkways but also included are documents concerning her involvement in local and national civic, political, and religious organizations. The Commission minutes included with the correspondence/subject files were retained because they include superintendent's monthly reports and monthly financial statements that are not part of the official minute books.