Four Points Bulletin

New Orleans City Park is my new favorite park. The 1,300 acre park was founded in 1854, originally used by men needing to defend their pride and honor by duel. Now it is a place where 5,000,000 people annually come to enjoy art, play sports, fly model airplanes, rent boats, go birding and more. With an art museum, a children’s museum, an amusement park, a botanical garden and horse stables, one day certainly isn’t enough time at City Park, but we are satisfied filling our day enjoying some of what the park offers.

Admission is free to Sydney and Walda Besthoff Sculpture Park. Located on eleven acres of gardens behind the New Orleans Museum of Art, there are over 90 works of art from various world renown artists.

There is now a Cafe Du Monde location within the park. Their sweet tea and beignets are the best we have had so far.

Storyland was a 1950s addition to City Park, where children can interact with fairytale characters and become a part of their storybooks.

The carousel in Carousel Gardens Amusement Park was built in 1906, although some of the hand carved animals were created in 1885. The horses have real horse hair tails. It is the only hand carved carousel in Louisiana and one of one hundred in the United States. Both the carousel and the building are on the National Registrar of Historic Places.

The rest of Carousel Gardens Amusement Park has Knott’s Berry Farm style rides, many of which are suitable for toddlers. The train departs from the amusement park, and takes you through some of City Park, which has the world’s largest collection of live oak trees, some over 600 years old.

And this, Ladies and Gentlemen, concludes why New Orleans City Park is my new favorite park.