Lafreniere Park

The land here has been cycling through identities since before New Orleans had a street grid. Governor Bienville granted this tract as Elmwood Plantation in 1720. It became Jefferson Downs harness racetrack in 1954. Hurricane Betsy destroyed the track in 1965, and for seventeen years the site sat vacant. Community advocacy eventually won: the park opened in 1982.

It's named for Nicolas Chauvin de la Freniere, executed in 1769 for revolting against Spanish rule. Jefferson Parish gave his name to a public park — which is about as New Orleans a gesture as you can make, honoring the man who lost for speaking up.

What the park became is worth the drive from the city. The two-mile jogging trail loops a lagoon and has become the most popular running route in Metairie. Marsh Island, the bird sanctuary at the park's heart, hosts white ibis, black swans, and great egrets. The carousel, the spray park, and the two dog parks fill out the rest — a flagship public park doing exactly what a flagship public park should do, which is give 155 acres back to the people who fund it. Mapcarta confirms the park is maintained through a local assessment added to residents' water bills: the neighborhood pays for this, and the neighborhood uses it.

Jefferson Parish needed a park. What it got was a piece of ground that survived plantation, racetrack, and a hurricane, then became something that actually serves the living. That's a reasonable outcome for a tract of land this old.