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[Melodie]

Central Park: A grand experiment, an urban respite

By ULA ILNYTZKY
Associated Press Writer

May 25, 2003, 10:29 AM EDT

NEW YORK -- Life without Central Park, Sarah Elliott declares, would be "impossible."

"There are so many things people worry about in this city," says Elliott, a bird watcher and New Yorker. "To step into the park is a reprieve. You become part of Mother Nature's plan."

Yet for all of its lush 843 acres, Central Park is a manmade oasis. The vision of designers Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux, it was born 150 years ago when the Legislature set aside land for the nation's first major public park.

Theater, music, dance and sports events mark a year of 150th birthday celebrations at Central Park. Two exhibits _ at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of the City of New York _ commemorate the sesquicentennial. And a new book details the park's extraordinary history.

There is much to celebrate today, too, with Central Park nearly restored to its original splendor and drawing 25 million people annually. It's a far cry from the days when a city fiscal crisis had turned the park into a diamond in the rough.

A private-public partnership formed 23 years ago has reinvigorated Central Park. Now, as it has throughout its history, Central Park offers an example to cities nationwide seeking to provide and maintain a respite amid urban bustle.

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In her new book, "Central Park, an American Masterpiece," Central Park historian and photographer Sara Cedar Miller calls the park "the marriage of aesthetics and engineering."

City commissioners began buying up acreage soon after the Legislature's approval. In 1858, Olmsted and Vaux won a competition to design the park _ a contest much like this year's World Trade Center design competition.

Ten million cartloads of soil were brought in to fill a landscape consisting mostly of swamps and 450-million-year-old bedrock that was moved or blasted with gunpowder. An underground drainage system was installed to create ponds and lakes.

"They look like they're natural, but they're run by the city water system. They're like your bathtub _ you can turn it on and you can turn it off," Cedar Miller says in an interview. "The landscape was redesigned and reconfigured to look natural, but it's anything but natural."

That natural look came at great cost _ 16 years of labor and $14 million for land and construction (By comparison, the United States purchased Alaska for $9 million a few years later.)

There was human cost as well. Although Manhattan was largely undeveloped above 38th Street, more than 1,600 people were displaced to make way for the park. Most were poor people living in shanties, but a stable black community called Seneca Village was also uprooted.

A Catholic school and convent were forced to relocate, too, becoming a residence for Olmsted and Vaux during the park's development. Two factories were closed, one on a site where the posh Tavern on the Green now sits.

But if the poor were displaced to make way for Central Park, Olmsted and Vaux had an egalitarian vision _ a park entirely for public use, for both rich and poor.

"It was the greatest social democratic experiment of the 19th century, and every city in the nation wanted a public park like Central Park," Cedar Miller says. Cities such as Albany and Buffalo in New York state, Louisville, Ky., Montreal, Boston and San Francisco all asked Olmsted and Vaux to design public parks.

Under construction for 16 years, Central Park opened to the public in phases. Portions of the southern and northern ends were completed first, in 1861.

At the time, the need to escape the ills of urban life was great, Cedar Miller says. New York City was a place "with horse manure covering everything, pollution worse than anything we have today ... the poor houses, the bad ventilation. Infant mortality was at its peak. So people came to the park because many of them were living in unhealthy conditions."

Olmsted and Vaux believed "that nature brought everyone together," Cedar Miller says, and that a public park "would soothe tensions."

The park still serves that purpose.

"It's our oasis from all this," said Bobbe Schwartz, gesturing toward the skyscrapers beyond the park walls as she walked her King Charles spaniel. "It's such a genteel place."

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Yet the park had lost much of its luster after the city's fiscal crisis of the 1970s.

Trees and gardens were untended, statues were defaced, benches were broken, bridges and other structures were covered in graffiti. Most of the meadows and lawns had turned to dust. With the city in difficult financial straits, maintenance and capital projects were placed on hold.

In 1980, the private, not-for-profit Central Park Conservancy was created to manage the park under contract with the city. It launched a massive restoration with $300 million in private and public donations to repair the damage and neglect.

Today, other cities are again looking to Central Park, this time as a model to restore their urban parks based on the conservancy's public-private partnership, Cedar Miller says.

Under the conservancy's stewardship, the park's 55-acre Great Lawn was restored "from a total dustball to the beautiful lawn that you see today," says Regina Peruggi, the current president. Some 60,000 people spread blankets and picnic baskets on summer nights there to hear the Metropolitan Opera or New York Philharmonic. By day, thousands use it for ballfields.

Along with upgrades to playgrounds, fountains and statues, the conservancy dredged the Harlem Meer, an 11-acre lake in the northernmost part of the park.

Peruggi says about $50 million of capital work still needs to be done. Major projects include the Bethesda Terrace Lake and the 20-acre East Meadow on the northern end of the park.

Many visitors _ including native New Yorkers _ don't realize the scope of the park: 58 miles of pedestrian paths and 150 acres of water bodies. It is a cyclist's paradise, a model boat enthusiast's playground, a horticulturist's greenhouse, a dog lover's back yard.

And it's a bird-watcher's mecca, attracting up to 215 species.

"It's on a flyway _ birds come in the spring on their way north. It's like rush hour on the subway," says Elliott, who writes and illustrates the bimonthly "Elliott Newsletter: Natures Notes From Central Park."

"These birds come in, and they're looking down and see a sea of cement and then, suddenly, there's this great green rectangle, so they drop in. They need water, food and rest and they can get it all there."

Species rare to the area include the peregrine falcon, the orchard oriole and the warbler. Common loons and red-throated loons love the Central Park Reservoir, where they have 106 acres from end-to-end "to run like mad in order to get aloft," she says.

Central Park has not always been known for tranquility. Its reputation has been marred by high-profile crimes, most notably the 1989 "wilding" attacks by gangs of youths against park-goers, A female investment banker was beaten and raped in the infamous "Central Park jogger" case that year.

Today, the NYPD says the park has the lowest crime rate of any precinct in the city. But publicity about any crime in Central Park is understandable, Cedar Miller says.

"It was meant to be an oasis, a place to get away from it all, from the horrors of the city, the urban ills," she says. "And so whenever something bad happens there, people jump on it because it's not supposed to happen."

What is supposed to happen is the kind of free-spirit events planned for the park's 150th celebration _ classical theater, music and dance performances under the sky _ and a big all-day birthday bash July 19 featuring a bike race, archery championships, and Andrea Bocelli in concert on the Great Lawn.

Cedar Miller calls Central Park "a work of art."

"It spawned all the national, state and urban parks." she says. "It's an American icon, as great as the Statue of Liberty."

On the Net:
www.centralparknyc.org

Copyright © 2003, The Associated Press

[Lisa]

Thanks for the article Melodie. :D I'm starting to get very excited. Only 54 days to go!!!

[Janice]

Wow! I didn't even think to count the days yet. 54 is not that long at all! I am SO excited! :D

[La Donna e Mobile]

I would LOVE to be there. I'm not sure I can get off work. I've never been to NYC before. I'm from a small Southern town and the thought of going is a little scary but very exciting. Seeing Andrea would be so worth it. :D
_________________
"To sing, to sing, to sing......." (Andrea revealing his future plans to Classic fm)

[Melodie]

Donna, a big city is just a bunch of small towns put together in one place...let go of the fear and concentrate on the adventure!

I really need your sense of humor there, so do your best to join us. :)