By the 1990s, the river had been rehabilitated, and a citizen movement to remove the highway bridge and reclaim the falls began in earnest. After much discussion, controversy, and debate, Mayor Knox White and City Council took a courageous step, voting in 2002 to remove the bridge and create Falls Park as an urban oasis in the heart of the city. The Liberty Bridge, a one-of-a-kind pedestrian suspension bridge designed by Miguel Rosales of Boston, became a transformative piece of this vision. Falls Park opened to the public in 2003, and the falls once again resumed its rightful place as the centerpiece of Greenville.