Even if you have never visited Central Park in New York City, you may be able to see it in your mind’s eye. Its extensive lawns, winding paths, rustic bridges, rock outcrops, ponds and lakes, all surrounded by towering skyscrapers, have featured in hundreds of popular films. Central Park not the largest park in NYC, however, it is iconic: an impressive public green space covering 843 acres right in the middle of Manhattan.
The park’s visionary architects, Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux, succeeded in creating a public expanse where people can roam and mingle while marveling at the beauty of the natural world. When it opened in 1858, it was the first public landscaped park in the U.S. Today, it gets more than forty million visitors every year, many of whom live or work locally.
We have visited Central Park several times over the years. Following our last visit, in November, we were curious to find out more about the history of the park. As it turns out, the very creation of Central Park and the fact that it has retained, to this day, most of the features of the architects’ original proposal, are nothing short of astonishing.
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