New York City's Central Park (Building America: Then and Now)

New York City's Central Park Is The Most Visited Urban Park In The United States, With More Than 25 Million Visitors Each Year. Designed In 1857 By The Man Who Would Become America's Most Famous Landscape Architect, Frederick Law Olmsted, And His Partner, Calvert Vaux, Central Park Was Intended To Provide New Yorkers With A Serene And Scenic Rural Refuge From The Noise And Bustle Of City Life. Yet Transforming The Rocky, Swampy Park Site Into The Rolling Meadows, Lush Woodlands, And Pristine Lakes Would Prove An Extremely Time-consuming And Labor-intensive Endeavor. Thousands Of Workers Drained Marshes, Blasted Away Boulders, And Planted A Quarter Billion Trees, Flowers, And Shrubs To Create The 843-acre Green Oasis In The Heart Of Manhattan As Envisioned By Olmsted And Vaux. New York City's Central Park is the most visited urban park in the United States, with more than 25 million visitors each year. Designed in 1857 by Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux, Central Park was intended to provide New Yorkers with a serene and scenic "rural" refuge from the noise and bustle of city life. Yet transforming the rocky, swampy park site into rolling meadows, lush woodlands, and pristine lakes proved an extremely time-consuming and labor-intensive endeavor. Thousands of workers drained marshes, blasted away boulders, and planted a quarter of a billion trees, flowers, and shrubs to create this 843-acre oasis in the heart of Manhattan. Central Park changed the lifestyle of the city and has served as a model for urban parks across the country Contents......Page 6 Introduction: A "Natural" Retreat in the Heart of Manhattan......Page 8 1: "Give Us a Park"......Page 12 2: Central Park It Is......Page 25 3: The Greensward Plan......Page 37 4: Clearing, Draining and Dredging......Page 51 5: Filling, Blasting and Planting......Page 65 6: Central Park's Unique Architecture......Page 79 7: A Work in Progress: Central Park Since 1877......Page 94 Timeline......Page 109 Glossary......Page 112 Bibliography......Page 114 Further Resources......Page 116 Picture Credits......Page 117 Index......Page 118 About the Author ......Page 121 Features some of the most famous and important construction projects that have shaped the American landscape, along with triumphant stories of great feats of engineering, the innovations in technology, the coming together of a motivated workforce, and the unification of the country.