Audubon Park, New Orleans

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Audubon Park entrance gates on the St. Charles Avenue side

Audubon Park is a city park located in New Orleans. The park is approximately six miles to the west of the city center of New Orleans and sits on land that was purchased by the city in 1871. It is bordered on one side by the Mississippi River and on another by the Tulane and Loyola Universities. The park is named in honor of artist and naturalist John James Audubon who lived in New Orleans starting in 1821.

The land now housing the park was a plantation in colonial days. It was the last large segment of what was to become Uptown New Orleans not subdivided for residential redevelopment in the 19th century. It was used by the Confederate and Union armies in the United States Civil War and as a staging area for the Buffalo Soldiers. The area was anexed by the City of New Orleans, along with the surrounding communities of Jefferson City below and Greenville above, in 1870, and the following year the city purchased the land. Use as an urban park was intended from the start, originally designated as "Upper City Park", but little development was made in the first decade. The land was developed to house a World's Fair, the World Cotton Centennial of 1884. After the closing of the Fair site it was redeveloped as a park, designed by Frederick Law Olmstead.

In 1898 the Audubon golf course opened within the park.

Early in the 20th century part of the park became home to the Audubon Zoo.

Such early and mid 20th century park attractions as the miniature railway, swimming pool, and swan boats in the lagoons were discontinued in the 1970s.

The ring road around the park was closed to automobile traffic at the start of the 1980s, and became a popular jogging and biking route.

In 2002 the golf course was renovated and expanded, to complaints by many non golfing users of the park when the original Olmstead design was violated. Also that same year, the New Orleans city council renamed the park's "Avenger Field" to "David Berger - Avenger Field" in memory of David Mark Berger, a graduate of the adjacent Tulane University, and the other victims of terrorism.

A number of the park's old live oak trees were blown down when Hurricane Katrina hit the city in 2005, but as the park is on the section of high ground near the River levees, it was above the flooding of the majority of the city after Katrina. It was used as a makeshift helicopter port and encampment for National Guard troops and relief workers after the storm.