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Central Park

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Jeannette Latoria
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« on: November 19, 2008, 02:03:07 am »

Central Park



The Pond looking North
Type Urban park
Location Manhattan, New York City
Coordinates 40°46′55″N 73°57′58″W / 40.78194, -73.96611 (Central Park)Coordinates: 40°46′55″N 73°57′58″W / 40.78194, -73.96611 (Central Park)
Size 843 acres (341 ha)
1.32 sq mi (3.4 km2)
Opened 1859
Operated by Central Park Conservancy
Annual visitors 25 million
Status Open all year


Central Park is a large public, urban park in New York City, with about twenty-five million visitors annually. Most of the areas immediately adjacent to the park are known for impressive buildings and valuable real estate. Central Park has been a National Historic Landmark since 1963.

The park is maintained by the Central Park Conservancy and the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation. The park was designed by Frederick Law Olmsted and architect Calvert Vaux. While much of the park looks natural, it is in fact almost entirely landscaped. It contains several natural-looking lakes and ponds, extensive walking tracks, two ice-skating rinks, the Central Park Zoo, the Central Park Conservatory Garden, a wildlife sanctuary, a large area of natural woods, a reservoir with an encircling running track, and the outdoor Delacorte Theater which hosts the "Shakespeare in the Park" summer festivals.

The park also serves as an oasis for migrating birds.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Park
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Jeannette Latoria
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« Reply #1 on: November 25, 2008, 11:55:36 pm »



Coordinates: 40°46′55″N 73°57′58″W / 40.78194, -73.96611Coordinates: 40°46′55″N 73°57′58″W / 40.78194, -73.96611
Built/Founded: 1857
Architect: Frederick Law Olmsted, Calvert Vaux
Designated as NHL: May 23, 1963
Added to NRHP: October 15, 1966
NRHP Reference#: 66000538[1]
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Jeannette Latoria
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« Reply #2 on: November 25, 2008, 11:56:44 pm »

Central Park is a large public, urban park (843 acres, 3,4 km², 1.32 sq mi; a rectangle 2.6 statute miles by 0.5 statute mile, or 4.1 km × 830 m) in the borough of Manhattan in New York City, almost 4/5 of the size of Vancouver's Stanley Park and just over 1/3 of the size of London's Richmond Park, but just 1/5 of Los Angeles's Griffith Park. With about twenty-five million visitors annually, Central Park is the most visited city park in the United States,[2] and its appearance in many movies and television shows has made it famous.

The park is maintained by the Central Park Conservancy, a private, not-for-profit organization that manages the park under a contract with the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation,[3] in which the president of the Conservancy is ex officio Administrator of Central Park.

Central Park is bordered on the north by West 110th Street, on the south by West 59th Street, on the west by Eighth Avenue. Along the park's borders however, these are known as Central Park North, Central Park South, and Central Park West respectively. Fifth Avenue retains its name along the eastern border of the park. Most of the areas immediately adjacent to the park are known for impressive buildings and valuable real estate.

The park was designed by landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted and architect Calvert Vaux, who went on to collaborate on Brooklyn's Prospect Park. Central Park has been a National Historic Landmark since 1963.[4][5][6]

While much of the park looks natural, it is in fact almost entirely landscaped. It contains several natural-looking lakes and ponds,[7] extensive walking tracks, two ice-skating rinks, the Central Park Zoo, the Central Park Conservatory Garden, a wildlife sanctuary, a large area of natural woods, a 106-acre (43 ha) billion gallon reservoir with an encircling running track, and an outdoor amphitheater called the Delacorte Theater which hosts the "Shakespeare in the Park" summer festivals. Indoor attractions include Belvedere Castle with its nature center, the Swedish Cottage Marionette Theatre, and the historic Carousel. In addition there are numerous major and minor grassy areas, some of which are used for informal or team sports, some are set aside as quiet areas, and there are a number of enclosed playgrounds for children.

The park has its own wildlife and also serves as an oasis for migrating birds, especially in the fall and the spring, making it a significant attraction for bird watchers; 200 species of birds are regularly seen.[8] The 6 miles (10 km) of drives within the park are used by joggers, bicyclists and inline skaters, especially on weekends, and in the evenings after 7:00 p.m., when automobile traffic is banned.

The real-estate value of Central Park is estimated to be $528,783,552,000 according to the property-appraisal firm Miller Samuel.[9]

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Jeannette Latoria
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« Reply #3 on: November 25, 2008, 11:58:38 pm »

Early history

The park was not part of the Commissioners' Plan of 1811; however, between 1821 and 1855, New York City nearly quadrupled in population. As the city expanded, peoples were drawn to the few open spaces, mainly cemeteries, to get away from the noise and chaotic life in the city.[10] Before long, however, New York City's need for a great public park was voiced by the poet and editor of the then-Evening Post (now the New York Post), William Cullen Bryant, and by the first American landscape architect, Andrew Jackson Downing, who began to publicize the city's need for a public park in 1844. A stylish place for open-air driving, like the Bois de Boulogne in Paris or London's Hyde Park, was felt to be needed by many influential New Yorkers, and in 1853 the New York legislature designated a 700-acre (280 ha) area from 59th to 106th Streets for the creation of the park, to a cost of more than US$5 million for the land alone. The park is the largest on Manhattan Island.

« Last Edit: November 25, 2008, 11:59:31 pm by Jeannette Latoria » Report Spam   Logged

Jeannette Latoria
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« Reply #4 on: November 26, 2008, 12:00:20 am »

Initial development

The State appointed a Central Park Commission to oversee the development of the park, and in 1857 the commission held a landscape design contest. Writer Frederick Law Olmsted and English architect Calvert Vaux developed the so-called "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 century—a democratic development of the highest significance…," a view probably inspired by his stay, and various trips in Europe in 1850.[11] During that trip he visited several parks, and was in particular impressed by Birkenhead Park near Liverpool, England.
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« Reply #5 on: November 26, 2008, 12:01:15 am »

Several influences came togethers in the design. Landscaped cemeteries, such as Mount Auburn (Cambridge, Massachusetts) and Green-Wood (Brooklyn, New York) had set an example of idyllic, naturalistic landscapes. 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 not to disturb the impression of a rustic scene. 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 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.

Before the construction of the park could start, the area had to be cleared of its inhabitants, most of whom were quite poor and either free African-Americans or immigrants of either German or Irish origin. Most of them lived in smaller villages, such as Seneca Village, Harsenville, the Piggery District or the Convent of the Sisters of Charity. The roughly 1,600 working-class residents occupying the area at the time were evicted under the rule of eminent domain during 1857, and Seneca Village and parts of the other communities were torn down and removed in order to make room for the park. The person responsible for carrying out the evictions was the great-great grandfather of future New York Yankee Joe Pepitone.

During the construction of the park, Olmsted fought constant battles with the Park Commissioners, many of whom were appointees of the city's Democratic machine. 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 chairman of the commission. Despite the fact that he had relatively little experience, he still managed to accelerate the construction, as well as to finalize the negotiations for the purchase of an additional 65 acres (26 ha) 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.

 
Cleopatra's Needle, Central ParkBetween 1860 and 1873, the construction of the park had come a long way, and most of the major hurdles had been overcome. During this period, more than 500,000 cubic feet (14,000 m³) of topsoil had been transported in from New Jersey, as the original soil wasn't good enough to sustains the various trees, shrubs, and plants the Greensward Plan called for. When the park was officially completed in 1873, more than ten million cartloads of material, including soil and rocks which were to be removed from the area had been manually dug up, and transported out of the park. Also included were the more than four million trees, shrubs and plants representing the approximately 1,500 species which were to lay the foundation for today's park.

Interestingly, sheep actually grazed on the Sheep Meadow from the 1860s until 1934, when they were moved upstate since it was feared they would be used for food by impoverished depression-era New Yorkers.[13]

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« Reply #6 on: November 26, 2008, 12:03:15 am »



Victor Prevost, The Terrace, Central Park, NY, Albumen Print, September 10th, 1862.
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Jeannette Latoria
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« Reply #7 on: November 26, 2008, 12:28:37 am »



One of the park's bridges, no two alike.
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« Reply #8 on: November 26, 2008, 12:29:43 am »




Central-Park, Winter: The Skating Pond, 1862
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Jeannette Latoria
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« Reply #9 on: November 26, 2008, 12:30:37 am »



Obelisk (Cleopatra's Needle) in Central Park, New York, NY November 2006
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