NEW ORLEANS CITY PARK

HILARY SCHEINUK / THE TIMES-PICAYUNEMarcus Foster, 2, of New Orleans glides down a slide at City Park's Storyland, where generations of New Orleanians have made memories.
Children ride the Ladybug Rollercoaster at City Park's Carousel Gardens Amusement Park, which has expanded its hours for the summer.
The thrill isn't gone from City Park's Storyland and Amusement Park
Published: Wednesday, June 23, 2010
At a time when children’s summer schedules can seem stuffed with day camps, swim lessons, library visits and other forms of organized leisure, I find it immensely reassuring that City Park’s Storyland is much the same as I remember it from my own childhood.
Here is a place that allows children’s imaginations to make it work.
Unlike the nearby Carousel Gardens Amusement Park, which has expanded its summer hours to attract nighttime visitors in cooler weather, Storyland does not entice its visitors with flashing lights, dinging bells and a panoply of whirling, zooming, bouncing rides. Storyland merely gives children a colorful stage for acting out adventures of their own making.
When I was 4 years old, I could imagine no better place than Storyland, and before and after visits, it turned my mind into a one-track loop of longing and impatience.
"Are we going to Storyland?" I would ask, over and over. And, for days after we’d gone: "Can we go today?"
read more at:http://www.nola.com/family/index.ssf/2010/06/post_6.html#incart_mce