The History of Central Park
Back in the early 1800s, the population of New York City, specifically Lower Manhattan, was growing exponentially. With an increasing amount of noise and crowded spaces, New York City residents were wanting more open spaces to gather. However, at the time, there were few open spaces with cemeteries being the best option for public get-togethers. That's when the idea of creating a park within New York City was proposed.
Today, Central Park has over 42 million visitors a year. It is one of the most visited parks in the country and one of the best destinations within New York City itself. Much to the surprise of everyone, it is not the biggest park in the city. In fact, Central Park is only the fifth largest park in New York City with a size of 843 acres.
When standing in Central Park today, you'd never imagine that the entire park is man-made. However, all the lakes, hills, open spaces, and rocky landscape was curated by hand. What was originally there, back in the 1850s when the plan was devised, was mostly swampy land, fields for sheep, and a few original villages and settlements. The government at the time needed the help of professionals to turn this land into the urban park it is today.
In the summer of 1856, Fernando Wood, the Mayor of New York City at the time, created a consulting board of seven people to spearhead the search for reliable professionals to manage the project. Wood hired Egbert Ludovicus Viele to be the park's chief engineer, design the park, and manage the topographic surveying of the current land. However, in 1857, the board changed as 11 people now lead the decision-making for the new park. Instead, this new board decided to create a design contest to find qualified candidates while still retaining Viele to work solely on the topography plans.
During this contest, 33 entries were submitted to manage the park project. When narrowing it down, it was a plan submitted by Frederick Law Olmsted, a farmer and writer, and Calvert Vaux, an English architect, who were selected to design what is now known as Central Park. Their plan was originally called the "Greensward Plan" and was inspired by Birkenhead Park, a publicly funded park in England.
The Olmsted and Vaux plan designed the 843 acres of land to include expansive lawn areas, woodlands that would represent small forests, streams and creeks, manmade ponds and lakes, pathways for horse and carriages, and long meandering paths that moved from end to end of the park.
When originally designing the park, the goal of Olmsted and Vaux when was to make sure that it was welcoming to all people and that it did not reflect any classist personifications. That is one of the reasons why there are no large arches when entering the park but rather many entries and exit points across the entire area.
It took years of planning, building, and labor to get the park to look like its initial vision. Since then, many features have been added including skating rinks, carousels, fields for sports like baseball and soccer, gardens, concert venues, and of course, the famous Zoo. To this day, major repairs and renovations are done throughout the park to keep it looking pristine and beautiful for visitors. In fact, over the last 37 years, over $1 billion have been spent investing in the restoration and maintenance of Central Park.
However, it wasn't always like that. Many politicians between the beginning of Central Park and where it is today have not cared about maintaining the park. Let's get into how this park was actually built and what challenges it has faced along the way.
How Central Park Was Built
After Olmsted and Vaux were selected as the principal designers for the new park, work began shortly after in 1958. Construction of the park was done by Olmsted and Vaux as the primary designers, as well as architect Jacob Wrey Mould, gardener Ignaz Anton Pilat, engineer George E. Waring Jr., and one of the board members, Andrew Haswell Green.
As work was being done on the park, it would slowly open in accordance with the finished areas. The first areas of the park, like the lake, were opened as early as late 1858. However, the original park was fully finished in 1876. The entire construction of Central Park took approximately $14 million, a significant increase from the budget of $5 million. This is partly due to the rising costs of labor and construction costs which led to the elimination of many original features and plans.
The park has eight lakes and ponds. These artificial, manmade lakes were created by damming the natural flows of water that were currently on the land. This required the expertise of the above contributors but also meant that almost 5 million cubic yards of stone, topsoil, and dirt had to be transported into the park throughout the years of construction. All of the landscapes, including lawns, wooded areas, gardens, and grassy strolls were manmade. According to some reports, this required a lot of gunpowder and explosives to be used in order to manipulate the current topography. On top of that, 36 bridges and arches were built and 11 overpasses were made.
In order to transport all of the materials to the park, steam-powered equipment and custom-built tree moving machines were built to help the laborers complete the job. Many of these pieces of equipment were innovative for their time. However, even with these machines, there were still safety accidents during the project with five laborers having died during the construction of Central Park. While being lower in proportion to the fatality rates at the time, it was still a significant loss.
Pilat's role in the project was as the chief landscape architect, responsible for determining the placement of the plants and trees. Meanwhile, William H. Grant managed a group of construction engineers to construct all the roads, paths, and buildings on the property. Back in this day, paths were made for horse-drawn carriages, not as much foot traffic, bikes, and cars. Waring, one of the engineers working under Grant, was responsible for all of the drainages on the land. A big role on such a large, expansive property.
By 1862, there was a new commissioner of the Central Park project which led to Olmsted resigning with Vaux following soon after in 1863. This was because the new commissioner, mostly referred to as Green, was a micromanager and tried to reduce costs wherever he could. According to reports, after Olmsted and Vaux left, he appointed himself as the new chief architect of the park despite having little to no experience. While it's fair to criticize Green, he is credited with expanding the Central Park property by a significant amount leading to further development. However, in 1865, Olmsted and Vaux were both re-hired and led the development of several structures.
In 1870, the Tammany Hall politicians were in power in New York which meant taking over the Central Park project for a brief time. This is when Olmsted and Vaux resigned again, only to be rehired one final time in 1871 when Tammany Hall was no longer in power. By 1872, the official partnership with Olmsted and Vaux ended but the park was not officially finished until 1876.
By the early 1900s, Central Park was facing its first real challenge. Cars were becoming more popular as a mode of transportation and the New York City Subway had been developed. This meant that people didn't have to stay in the confines of New York to have entertainment, allowing them to explore the rest of the state and see Central Park as a less useful meeting spot. On top of that, politics got confusing within the city and the aesthetic atmosphere of the park was decreasing.
With plants and gardens not being replaced, soil eroding on pathways, waterways and streams getting clogged, much work was needed to restore and maintain the park. Fortunately, in 1934, a new Mayor, Fiorello H. La Guardia decided to reinvest in the park. He appointed Robert Moses as the NYC Parks Commissioner who made it his mission to revitalize Central Park.
Moses received funding to develop new plans for the park including 19 playgrounds, baseball fields, courts for different sports, and a skating rink. He also was given the task of cleaning up the park - both from garbage and within the landscaping. By this time, weeds had taken over a lot of the land within the park, monuments had been vandalized or destroyed, rust was on all the metal, and walkways had begun to crack. Restorations of serious magnitude were put in place from Moses's placement in the 1930s all the way to the late 1950s with his biggest stamp being the Central Park Zoo.
However, Moses left his position in 1960 without any place for upkeep or ongoing development. As such, Central Park became destitute once again with benches and lights being broken, playgrounds being destroyed and unusable, and, with the park being 100 years old, lots more damage. This led to a report being released in 1973 about how bad the erosion within the park was and that they needed to make changes in order to make it the place to congregate as it once was.
Central Park Today
By the late 1970s, a new Parks Commissioner, Gordon Davis, was appointed. Within his new role, he created a Central Park Task Force, more commonly referred to as the Central Park Conservancy. The CPC is a nonprofit organization that has a citizen board, showing that the local population is dedicated to having this park be worth visiting and sharing within the community.
This new group created a plan to redevelop and revitalize Central Park. This first plan was a 15-year restoration plan. Within that 15-year window, they restored old landmarks, renovated the ice rink, and did four years' worth of renovations to the Zoo. Renovations have continued under this group to this day with projects like restoring ponds and lakes, replacing fences, refurbishing structures, and restoring bridges.
Altogether, Central Park has a complicated history with many people contributing to its lifespan. If you ever get the chance to visit New York, spending time with loved ones in the park doing a picnic, or just taking a leisurely stroll on its many beautiful paths should be on the top of your list.
