A Crown Jewel in New Orleans

It has been close to ten years since I ventured to City Park in New Orleans. Since then the park has recovered from Katrina and is looking as beautiful as she can. Hubby and I had business to do in "Kennah" and chose City Park to kill some time; we were happily surprised in the beauty that the park offers. If you're interested, this site Offers the history of the Park. I never knew it was once the site of a plantation.

Here are the pictures, in no particular order.

Click on pictures for larger versions.


the sundial




Popp's Bandstand


Called the "Colombier de Carol", this building is also called City Park Pigeonierre, or a dovecote.


This is the plaque for the Colombier . Designed and dedicated by former City Park President and New Orleans barrister Felix Dreyfous.

Speaking of signs and plaques, City Park has so many plaques throughout its 1,300 acres and you can find them and their history at this website.









There are so many bridges crossing the Lagoon at the Park. I fell in love with each and every one of them, as none of them are the same.




The Peristyle, built in 1907.



One of the lions outside the Peristyle


I spotted this very beauty at a ticket window just outside the kiddie playground.

After walking the length of the lagoon, we decided to cross the street into another fenced in portion of the park and were extremely happy to discover that it was the Bestoff Sculpture Garden!



A coworker told me about this garden several years ago and I'd been meaning to find it. Glad we did today. What a tremendous place to spend some time.

Described by goneworleans about dot com as follows:

It's a 5-acre garden under cypress and magnolia trees, as well as, centuries-old oak trees laden with Spanish moss, in the heart of City Park. It is beautifully landscaped. The garden contains several water features including a small cascading garden pool with stepping stones to cross. A lagoon that bisects the garden empties into two large basins, each containing a large sculpture. A sculpture pool cascades down into one of the lagoon basins. The lagoons are filled with fish and turtles. Herons and swans inhabit the area as well. Pathways wonder through the garden and lead to the larger sculptures. Because these paths were designed to preserve the extensive root patterns of the over 200 year-old live oak trees, they wonder through the garden in a design dictated by nature. Smaller sculptures are exhibited in the elliptical Sculpture Theater.

For a dollar you can obtain a guide to the sculptures, which I highly recommend.


Entitled "Mother and Child (1988) by Fernando Botero





Tree of Necklaces (reminded me of Mardi Gras) (2002) by Jean-Michel Othoniel


"Window and Ladder - Too Late for Help" by Leandro Erlich




This one is called "Monkeys" by Rona Pondick and it's really disturbing when you look closely.




"Travelin' Light" by Alison Saar



Pablo Casals' Obelisk (1983) by Arman







One of the strangest things we discovered was what appears to be a grave between the sculpture garden and the botanical garden.





We only could spend three hours at the park today, so we agreed that our next trip in two weeks we will visit the Botanical Gardens and the NOMA. Pictures to follow.