Spartan Profiles: Kristina Ford
THE NEW, NEW ORLEANS
New Orleans is known for the French Quarter, the St. Charles Streetcar Line, and St. Louis Cathedral. In the future, some more memorable properties might crop up, thanks to the planning by Kristina Ford, ’67, executive director of the New Orleans Building Corporation. “We’re an arm of the city,” explains Ford. “We look around at assets, either underutilized, vacant or abandoned, and figure out how to put them back into commerce.”
One example is Lincoln Beach on the south side of Lake Ponchartrain. “It was frequented by African Americans,” says Kristina. “After segregation ended in 1962, it was abandoned for 40 years.” The NOBC is now redeveloping the entire area.
Another example is the World Trade Center, built in 1964 on the Mississippi River. “It’s across the river from a casino, right next to the aquarium and just downriver from the convention center,” she notes. “We’re converting the lower part to a hotel. The outside will be changed dramatically, and the inside will be changed stupendously.”
Born in Santa Maria, CA, to a father in the Air Force, Kristina moved all over. In high school at McLean, VA, she began receiving letters from MSU, which was then aggressively recruiting National Merit Scholars. She came to East Lansing to compete for an Alumni Distinguished Scholarship, and while she didn’t win, she was “dazzled” and chose MSU over Stanford. “I thought it was the greatest place for me, and it was,” she says, adding that she met her future husband Richard Ford, now a Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist, in her freshman year.
She touts her ATL professor Fred Reeve. “He took great care in grading and gave us very imaginative assignments,” she recalls. “He had read everything and remembered everything.” She says MSU was a life-transforming experience. “I found it intoxicating—metaphorically speaking—to be around so many interesting people,” she says.
After living in New York and Montana, in 1990 Kristina and Richard settled in New Orleans—a city they love, and hope to make better.
