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Central Park in Manhattan

Friday, 16 September 2016 - 11:00 am (CET/MEZ) Berlin | Author/Destination: North America / Nordamerika
Category/Kategorie: General, New York City, Palaces, Castles, Manors, Parks Reading Time:  22 minutes

🔊 Listen to this Post Central Park is an urban park in middle-upper Manhattan, within New York City. Central Park is the most visited urban park in the United States, with 40 million visitors in 2013. It is also one of the most filmed locations in the world. The Park was established in 1857 on 778 acres (315 ha) of city-owned land. In 1858, Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux, a landscape architect and an architect, respectively, won a design competition to improve and expand the park with a plan they titled the “Greensward Plan”. Construction began the same year and the park’s first area was opened to the public in the winter of 1858. Construction continued during the American Civil War farther south, and was expanded to its current size of 843 acres (341 ha) in 1873. Central Park was designated a National Historic Landmark (listed by the U.S. Department of the Interior and administered by the National Park Service) in 1962. The Park was managed for decades by the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation, and is currently managed by the Central Park Conservancy under contract with the municipal government in a public-private partnership. The Conservancy is a non-profit organization that contributes 75 percent of Central Park’s $65 million annual budget and is responsible for all basic care of the 843-acre park.

Between 1821 and 1855, New York City nearly quadrupled in population. As the city expanded northward up Manhattan, people were drawn to the few existing open spaces, mainly cemeteries, to get away from the noise and chaotic life in the city. Since Central Park was not part of the original Commissioners’ Plan of 1811, John Randel, Jr., surveyed the grounds. The only remaining surveying bolt from his survey is still visible; it is embedded in a rock just north of the present Dairy and the 65th Street Transverse, and south of Center Drive. New York City’s need for a great public park was resounded by the famed poet and editor of the Evening Post (now the New York Post), William Cullen Bryant, as well as by the first American landscape architect, Andrew Jackson Downing, who predicted and began to publicize the city’s need for a public park in 1844. A stylish place for open-air driving, similar to Paris‘ Bois de Boulogne or London‘s Hyde Park, was felt to be needed by many influential New Yorkers, and, after an abortive attempt in 1850–1851 to designate Jones’s Wood, in 1853 the New York legislature settled upon a 700-acre (280 ha) area from 59th to 106th Streets for the creation of the Park, at a cost of more than US$5 million for the land alone. The state appointed a Central Park Commission to oversee the development of the park, and in 1857 the commission held a landscape design contest. Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux developed what came to be known as the “Greensward Plan”, which was selected as the winning design. According to Olmsted, the park was “of great importance as the first real Park made in this country—a democratic development of the highest significance…”, a view probably inspired by his stay and various trips in Europe during 1850 (he had visited several parks during these trips and was particularly impressed by Birkenhead Park and Derby Arboretum in England). The Greensward Plan called for some 36 bridges, all designed by Vaux, ranging from rugged spans of Manhattan schist or granite, to lacy Neo-Gothic cast iron; no two are alike. The ensemble of the formal line of the Mall‘s doubled allées of elms culminating at Bethesda Terrace, whose centerpiece is the Bethesda Fountain, with a composed view beyond of lake and woodland, was at the heart of the larger design. The most influential innovations in the Central Park design were the “separate circulation” systems for pedestrians, horseback riders, and pleasure vehicles. The “crosstown” commercial traffic was entirely concealed in sunken roadways (today called “transverses”), screened with densely planted shrub belts so as to maintain a rustic ambiance.

During the park’s construction, Olmsted fought constant battles with the park commissioners, many of them also politicians. In 1860, he was forced out for the first of many times as Central Park’s superintendent, and Andrew Haswell Green, the former president of New York City’s Board of Education took over as the commission’s chairman. Despite his having relatively little experience, he managed to accelerate the construction as well as to finalize the negotiations to purchase an additional 65 acres (260,000 m²) at the north end of the park, between 106th and 110th Streets, which would be used as the “rugged” part of the park, its swampy northeast corner dredged, and reconstructed as the Harlem Meer. Between 1860 and 1873, most of the major hurdles to construction were overcome and the park was substantially completed. Construction combined the modern with the ageless: up-to-date steam-powered equipment and custom-designed wheeled tree moving machines augmented massive numbers of unskilled laborers wielding shovels. The work was extensively documented with technical drawings and photographs. During this period, more than 18,500 cubic yards (14,100 m³) of topsoil had been transported in from New Jersey, because the original soil was neither fertile nor sufficiently substantial to sustain the various trees, shrubs, and plants called for by the Greensward Plan. When the park was officially completed in 1873, more than 10 million cartloads of material had been transported out of the park, including soil and rocks, and more than four million trees, shrubs, and plants representing approximately 1,500 species were transplanted to the park. More gunpowder was used to clear the area than was used at the Battle of Gettysburg during the American Civil War. A proposal to have ornate, European-style entrances to the park was opposed by Olmsted and Vaux, who intended for the park’s unadorned entrances to signal “that all were welcome, regardless of rank or wealth.” The park’s commissioners assigned a name to each of the original 18 gates in 1862. The names were chosen to represent the broad diversity of New York City’s trades; for example, “Mariner’s Gate” for the entrance at 85th Street and Central Park West. The majority of entrances did not receive an inscription, however, until a park restoration effort in 1999. Sheep grazed on the Sheep Meadow from the 1860s until 1934, when they were moved to Prospect Park in Brooklyn, and soon thereafter moved to a farm near Otisville in the Catskill Mountains. It was feared they would be used for food by impoverished Depression-era New Yorkers. Officials were concerned that starving men would turn the sheep into lunch.

Following completion, the park quickly slipped into decline. One of the main reasons for this was the lack of interest from the Tammany Hall political machine, which was the largest political force in New York at the time. Around the turn of the 20th century, the park faced several new challenges. Cars were becoming commonplace, bringing with them their burden of pollution, and people’s attitudes were beginning to change. No longer were parks to be used only for walks and picnics in an idyllic environment but now also for sports and similar recreation. Following the dissolution of the Central Park Commission in 1870 and Andrew Green’s departure from the project, and Vaux’s death in 1895, the maintenance effort gradually declined. All of this changed in 1934, when Republican Fiorello La Guardia was elected mayor of New York City and unified the five park-related departments then in existence. Robert Moses was given the task of cleaning up the park. Moses, about to become one of the most powerful men in New York City, took over what was essentially a relic, a leftover from a bygone era. In a single year, Moses managed to clean up Central Park and other parks in New York City. Lawns and flowers were replanted, dead trees and bushes were replaced, walls were sandblasted, and bridges repaired. Another dramatic change was Moses’s removal of the “Hoover Valley” shantytown, whose site was transformed into the 30 acres (12 ha) Great Lawn. Major redesigning and construction also was carried out: for instance, the Croton Lower Reservoir was filled in so the Great Lawn could be created. The Greensward Plan‘s purpose of creating an idyllic landscape was combined with Moses’ vision of a park to be used for recreational purposes: 19 playgrounds, 12 ball fields, and handball courts were constructed. Moses also managed to secure funds from the New Deal program, as well as donations from the public.

The 1960s marked the beginning of an “Events Era” in Central Park that reflected the widespread cultural and political trends of the period. The Public Theater‘s annual Shakespeare in the Park festival was settled in the Delacorte Theater (1961), and summer performances were instituted on the Sheep Meadow, and then on the Great Lawn by the New York Philharmonic Orchestra and the Metropolitan Opera. During the late 1960s the park became the venue for rallies and cultural events such as the “Love-ins” and “Be-Ins” of the period. Increasingly through the 1970s, the park became a venue for events of unprecedented scale, including rallies, demonstrations, festivals, and concerts. In the warm months of mid-1966, two-term mayor of New York (1966–73) John V. Lindsay, himself an avid cyclist, initiated a weekend ban on automobiles in Central Park for the enjoyment of cyclists and public alike – a policy that continues. Despite the increasing numbers of visitors to the park, Robert Moses’ departure in 1960 marked the beginning of a 20-year period of decline in its management. The city was experiencing economic and social changes, with some residents leaving the city and moving to the suburbs in the wake of increased crime. The Parks Department, suffering from budget cuts, responded by opening the park to any and all activities that would bring people into it, without adequate oversight and maintenance follow-up. Some of these events nevertheless became milestones in the social history of the park and in the cultural history of the city. By the mid-1970s, however, managerial neglect was taking a toll on the park’s condition. “Years of poor management and inadequate maintenance had turned a masterpiece of landscape architecture into a virtual dustbowl by day and a danger zone by night”, in the opinion of Douglas Blonsky, a president of the Central Park Conservancy. Vandalism, territorial use (e.g. a pick-up game of softball or soccer, which commandeered open space and excluded others), and illicit activities were taking place in the park. Several volunteer citizen groups emerged, intent upon reclaiming the park by fundraising and organizing volunteer initiatives. One of these groups, the Central Park Community Fund, commissioned a study of the park’s management. The study’s conclusion was bi-linear; it called for establishment of a single position within the New York City Parks Department, responsible for overseeing both the planning and management of Central Park, as well as a board of guardians to provide citizen oversight. In 1979, Parks Commissioner Gordon Davis established the Office of Central Park Administrator, appointing to the position the executive director of another citizen organization, the Central Park Task Force. The Central Park Conservancy was founded the following year, to support the office and initiatives of the administrator, and to provide consistent leadership through a self-perpetuating, citizen-based board that also would include as ex-officio trustees, the Parks Commissioner, the Central Park Administrator, and mayoral appointees.

Under the leadership of the Central Park Conservancy, the park’s reclamation began with modest, but highly significant first steps, addressing needs that could not be met within the existing structure and resources of the parks department. Interns were hired, and a small restoration staff to reconstruct and repair unique rustic features, undertaking horticultural projects, and removing graffiti under the broken windows theory; currently the state of the park has improved, according to Conservancy president Douglas Blonsky:

Graffiti doesn’t last 24 hours in Central Park; visible litter gets carted off by 9 each morning and throughout the day. Our workers empty trash receptacles daily (at least) and maintain lawns with tremendous care. Broken benches and playground equipment get fixed on the spot.

By 1980, the Conservancy was also engaged in design efforts and long-term restoration planning, using both its own staff and external consultants. It provided the impetus and leadership for several early restoration projects funded by the city, preparing a comprehensive plan for rebuilding the park. The restoration was accompanied by a crucial restructuring of management, whereby the park was subdivided into zones, to each of which a supervisor was designated, responsible for maintaining restored areas. That year, the Dairy (which was originally designed as a refreshment stand and rest spot) was transformed into the Park’s first visitors center, with the Conservancy using it to revitalize public interest in the Park through exhibits, music series and children’s programs. The first landscape to be restored was the Sheep Meadow, primarily with funds provided by New York State. The next few years would see the restoration of Bethesda Terrace and Fountain, Belvedere Castle, the East Green, and Cherry Hill plaza. First, Bethesda Fountain, which had been dry for decades, was restored in 1980–81 and the Terrace was restored a year later, its stonework disassembled, cleaned, deteriorated surfaces removed, restored and patched and reset. Resodding, and fifty new trees, 3,500 shrubs and 3,000 ground cover plants specified by Philip Winslow followed in 1986, most of which, having matured into dense blocks, were removed in 2008, to make way for plants native to the United States; meanwhile, the Minton encaustic tiles of the ceiling of the arcade between the flanking stairs, designed by Mould, were removed in 1987, cleaned, restored, completed with additional new tiles and reinstalled in 2007. Around the same time, the Belvedere Castle, which had been closed for many years, was renovated and then reopened on May 1, 1983, as the Henry Luce Nature Observatory. Cherry Hill, however, did not get fully restored until 1998. By the following year, the Chess & Checkers House and Frisbee Hill had been restored; thousands of shrubs and flowers asserted the Park as a horticultural showpiece. To tend to those plants, more than 1,900 volunteers contributed more than 4,000 hours of work in the Park. On completion of the planning stage in 1985, the conservancy launched its first capital campaign, assuming increasing responsibility for funding the park’s restoration, and full responsibility for designing, bidding, and supervising all capital projects in the park. The Conservancy launched its first fundraising campaign in 1986, mapping out a 15-year restoration plan that sought to remain true to the original design by Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux. Over the next several years, Campaign for the Central Park Conservancy restored landmarks in the southern part of the Park – Grand Army Plaza, Shakespeare Garden, and Cedar Hill. By 1988, Conservancy volunteers logged more than 13,000 hours in the Park, with the organization’s volunteer program winning a citation for excellence from the White House. In the early 1990s, the Conservancy announced a $50 million Capital Campaign to focus on improvements to the northern end of the Park. Efforts culminated in the restoration of the Mall and Concert Ground, Harlem Meer, and the Ravine in the North Woods. The Conservancy’s work on the Meer and the Charles A. Dana Discovery Center was subsequently honored with three awards: the 1994 New York City Landmarks Preservation Award, the American Society of Landscape Architects’ Design Merit Award and the Victorian Society’s Citation of Merit. In 1996, the Conservancy embarked on its single most ambitious landscape restoration: the overhaul of the 55 acres including and surrounding the Great Lawn and Turtle Pond (formerly the Great Lawn and the Belvedere Lake). The project was the centerpiece of the Conservancy’s three-year Wonder of New York Campaign, which raised $71.5 million and also helped restore southern and westside landscapes, as well as the North Meadow. The Great Lawn project was completed in 1997, featuring new amenities to encourage both passive and active recreation and nature appreciation.

Renovations continued through the early 2000s. The Conservatory Water opened after a six-month restoration effort, with a $4 million project beginning on the 59th Street Pond, one of the Park’s most visible and heavily used landscapes. A new Reservoir fence was installed in 2003 under a $2 million capital project that replaced the old chain-link fence with a replica of the 8,000-foot steel and cast-iron one that had enclosed the Reservoir in 1926. The new fence, along with removal of invasive trees and shrubs, restored the panoramic views of the Park and Manhattan skyline. Another ambitious restoration effort began in 2004, when Conservancy staff and contractors worked together to refurbish the 15,876 Minton tiles that hang on the ceiling of the Bethesda Arcade. Originally designed by Calvert Vaux and Jacob Wrey Mould, the ceiling of the Arcade is lined by 15,876 elaborately patterned encaustic tiles. Made by Minton and Company, a leading 19th Century ceramic manufacturer in England, the ceiling tiles are divided into 49 panels, each containing 324 tiles. Salt and water infiltration from the roadway above had badly damaged the tiles, leaving their backing plates so corroded they had to be removed in the 1980s. The tiles sat in storage for more than 20 years until the Conservancy received a generous private donation for their restoration. The Conservancy embarked on a $7 million restoration effort to return the Minton tiles to their original luster in 2004. A team of seven conservation technicians cleaned and repaired more than 14,000 original tiles by hand. Only three panels of replica tiles were needed to replace those that had been damaged beyond repair. For those recreations, the Conservancy decided to commission Maw and Company, Minton’s successor in Stoke-on-Trent. The completed Bethesda Terrace Arcade was unveiled to much fanfare in March 2007. In 2006, the Conservancy completed a nine-month renovation of the Mall in a project that returned the landscape to its original character and ensured the protection of its great American Elms. The Lake was the last of Central Park’s bodies of water to be renovated by the Central Park Conservancy, in a project to enhance both its ecological and scenic aspects. In the summer of 2007 the first phase of a restoration of the Lake and its shoreline plantings commenced, with replanting using native shrubs and understory trees around the northern end of the Lake, from Bank Rock Bay— a narrow cove in the northwest corner that had become a silted-up algae-covered stand of aggressively invasive Phragmites reeds— to Bow Bridge, which received replicas of its four original Italianate cast-iron vases, overspilling with annuals. In the earliest stages, invasive non-native plants like Japanese knotweed were eradicated, the slopes were regraded with added humus and protected with landscaping burlap to stabilize the slopes while root systems became established and leaf litter developed.

Visitor attractions include: Arsenal, Belvedere Castle, Bethesda Terrace and Fountain, Blockhouse No. 1, Burnett Memorial Fountain, Central Park Carousel, Central Park Mall, Central Park Zoo, Delacorte Theater, Diana Ross Playground, Fort Clinton, Lasker Rink, McGowan’s Pass, McGown’s Pass Tavern, Rumsey Playfield, Swedish Cottage Marionette Theatre, Tavern on the Green, Victorian Gardens, and Wollman Rink.

Read more on Central Park Conservancy, Central Park Zoo and Wikipedia Central Park (Smart Traveler App by U.S. Department of State - Weather report by weather.com - Global Passport Power Rank - Travel Risk Map - Democracy Index - GDP according to IMF, UN, and World Bank - Global Competitiveness Report - Corruption Perceptions Index - Press Freedom Index - World Justice Project - Rule of Law Index - UN Human Development Index - Global Peace Index - Travel & Tourism Competitiveness Index). Photos by Wikimedia Commons. If you have a suggestion, critique, review or comment to this blog entry, we are looking forward to receive your e-mail at comment@wingsch.net. Please name the headline of the blog post to which your e-mail refers to in the subject line.

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