Designed by the son of the famed Frederick Olmeste...

Designed by the son of the famed Frederick Olmestead, whose firm designed not only the 1893 Columbian exposition in Chicago but the beautiful Central Park as well, I am confused as to where the landscape and upkeep went wrong. I am not sure where the funding comes from, but with Tulane, Loyala, and one of the richest parts of town (The Garden and Business districts) surrounding it, I am absolutely befuddled as to why it does not have the splendor of a park befitting of its magnitude and history. The bones are there: the lagoon sidles along the eastern portion, beautifully fitting gazebos dot the landscape, and portions have been obviously well crafted with foliage and ponds complimenting the natural beauty and walkways that sprawl through the edges of the park. This all makes me wonder why it does not have the sculpted iron masterpieces, or detailed buildings, hermitages, or gateways one would expect from a park that once housed not only the worlds fair, but the largest roofed structure the world had ever seen. A little picnic building with a water fountain that tastes of accumulated rust stands too proudly at the entrance of this massive tract of land. More so, the entire center of the northern portion is allotted to an ill shaded golf course, and the southern section is dominated by a zoo -- which, while fitting, does little to contribute its beauty to the park as the Central Park Zoo does to its own namesake. Is this not the Crescent City? The largest city in Lousiana, the mother of Jazz, the city that at certain points in time held one of the largest populations in the south, one of the largest ports in the US, and handled a third of America's cotton? I can only hope that the money they neglected to spend on their parks was well spent on infrastructure elsewhere, because little sign of it still stands in Audabon.