City Park Grand Entrance and Lelong Oak Avenue
Why is it significant?
Pass beneath the majestic stone pylons of the Grand Entrance to New Orleans City Park, where Lelong Avenue stretches in formal classical symmetry toward the New Orleans Museum of Art.
Key Facts
| Place | City Park Grand Entrance and Lelong Oak Avenue |
|---|---|
| Address | 1 Palm Dr, New Orleans, LA 70124, United States |
| Geo Coordinates | 29.98550, -90.09000 |
| Part of Walk | Bayou Saint John and City Park Heritage: Ancient Waterways and Live Oak Groves |
| Generated | Generated |
Pass beneath the majestic stone pylons of the Grand Entrance to New Orleans City Park, where Lelong Avenue stretches in formal classical symmetry toward the New Orleans Museum of Art. Covering thirteen hundred acres of lush subtropical woodlands, winding bayous, historic lagoons, and landscaped gardens, City Park is officially fifty percent larger than New York's Central Park and stands as one of the oldest, largest, and most beloved municipal urban parks in the United States.
Look down the majestic double row of trees along Lelong Avenue: this grand allée is planted with monumental southern live oaks whose sweeping branches meet overhead, forming a verdant cathedral of living green that frames the neoclassical museum facade.
City Park originated in the mid-nineteenth century on the former sugar plantation of French planter Don Louis Allard. When Allard suffered financial ruin, his beloved plantation was acquired in 1845 by the eccentric American merchant and real estate tycoon John McDonogh, who bequeathed the acreage to the cities of New Orleans and Baltimore for public education and parks. Officially established as a municipal park in 1891, the grounds were transformed during the Great Depression through an immense Works Progress Administration (WPA) program in the 1930s, during which over twenty thousand unemployed citizens built roads, excavated scenic lagoons, constructed stone bridges, and planted thousands of trees. Today, the park is home to the largest grove of mature live oaks in the world, with over thirty thousand trees, many of which are between two hundred and eight hundred years old.
Walking down the shaded canopy of Lelong Avenue as sunlight filters through the hanging Spanish moss onto the reflecting pool, the sheer majesty of nature is overwhelming. City Park is the emerald crown of New Orleans.
Continue along Lelong Avenue to the grand neoclassical portico of the New Orleans Museum of Art.