The Central Park

Location:   New York City
Year:  1853

Around 1850 it was already becoming evident that New York needed lungs. The city's populationhad quadrupled since 1800 and would quadruple again before the end of the century, and then quadruple yet again.

 

The tangled packed quarters of downtown were swarming with human beings. By 1910 the immigrant neighborhood of the Lower East Side, less than one and a half miles square, would have 543,000 inhabitants, a population density of 362,000 per square mile, the most populous residential district in history.

If the Commissioner’s Plan had one failing it was in providing a lack of green space. The regimented blocks above 14th Street marched --- even if they weren’t developed --- unrelievedly up the length of Manhattan Island. In a sense, this was surprising. Central London’s parks --- Hyde Park, Kensington Gardens, Green Park, St. James’ Park, and Regent’s Park --- once royal hunting preserves --- had been opened to the public beginning in the 17th Century, a fact of which the New York Commissioners were very well aware, and the huge parks of London acted as London’s “lungs” giving residents a respite from the aggressiveness of urban development. Why such spaces were not built into the Plan for New York is evidence of an amazing blind spot in the midst of one of the most foresighted development plans ever.

Neighborhood people took charge of the problem. Cemeteries became impromptu parks. Here and there throughout lower Manhattan, especially where meandering Broadway intersected with the grid at odd angles, “postage stamp parks” like Union Square and Tompkins Square were laid out, but they underwent limited development until the late 19th Century. In the meantime, the city had other plans.

Buying up an immense rectangle of land in the approximate center of Manhattan then consisting of farms and small villages, the Common Council evicted these people and declared the entire area to be “the central park of New York City” in 1853. The central park was so far uptown at that point (59th Street) and stretched so, seemingly forever, far to 106th Street, that hardly anyone visited. And the park was later enlarged, reaching then to 110th Street. In total, it would be 843 acres, more than a square mile of Manhattan real estate dedicated to man and nature. Today its financial worth is in the billions --- one estimate is $528,783,552,000. It's value is incalculable.

To attract New Yorkers to the central park a design competition was held in 1857. Frederick Law Olmstead and Calvert Vaux submitted the winning design, “The Greensward Plan,” a carefully sculpted and landscaped series of lawns, lakes, and hills, joined together by carriage and footpaths and 36 stunningly carved bridges. Basically, their plan was to recreate what the Commissioners had banished, a wooded and hilly sanctuary in the heart of Manahatta. And though “The Central Park” (like “The Yankee Stadium” the article was part and parcel of the name at first) seems like a region of unspoilt Manhattan never touched by human hands, the truth is that not a rock stands or a blade of grass grew or grows there that hadn’t been carefully selected for that purpose. Even in its most seemingly natural place, Manhattan is an environment where Man has completely subjugated nature. Four million plants, representing 1,500 species, made up the original arboretum.

 

Construction continued into the 1860s, slowed but never abandoned in the midst of the Civil War and the Draft Riots. It took until 1873 for the park to be completed.

Unfortunately, after a period of intense interest that lasted into the 1880s, New Yorkers began taking the park for granted. The City, pressed for monies to use for Progressive Era projects, ceased funding the park, which became increasingly raggedy, a place for ne’er-do-wells. By the 1920s the park was in very sad shape. During the Depression the sheep in the Sheep Meadow were carted away for fear that they would be eaten by starving New Yorkers. Between 1930 and 1933, a series of Hoovervilles sprang up.

When Fiorello LaGuardia became New York’s Mayor in 1934 he immediately appointed a young firebrand developer named Robert Moses to redevelop Central Park. Moses replanted. He created The Great Lawn on the site of the old Croton Reservoir. He installed ballfields and playgrounds. He created spaces for public events such as concerts. Depression-weary New Yorkers began to visit Central Park in great numbers (it’s said that Moses dropped the “The”) as a place of respite. It was Robert Moses’ first great development project. Over the next 30 years he would remake New York, sometimes in ways that were inimical to New Yorkers’ needs and sensibilities. But Central Park was his early masterpiece --- maybe because he was improving on something already intrinsically sound.

The Park thrived until the late 1960s, when again, the city had to divert funds to other purposes. Neglected again, Central Park declined rapidly. It soon became a very dangerous place to be, especially at night. The 1970s were the Park’s worst years.

In 1979, the Central Park Conservancy was formed to reclaim the park from the marauders who had turned it into a battle zone and put it back into the hands of law-abiding New Yorkers. Renovations and maintenance have been ongoing since then, under the direction of 250 Parks and Recreation workers aided by 3,000 volunteers. Crime has dropped precipitously; from a high of over 1,000 a year in the 1980s, the crime rate is now under 100 per year.

Cars have largely been banned, helping to maintain the park's rustic, if not always quiet, atmosphere. The Park is a regular stop for migrating birds. Almost every North American species has been seen there. There are no large animals (except in the Zoo and the stables) but there are raccoons galore, squirrels, and even some chipmunks. There are also five people listed as permanent residents of the Park, though the City denies that anyone actually lives there.

With the continuing gentrification of New York, Central Park, though different from what Olmstead and Vaux imagined, is the breathing space of the busy city.