Central Park
Central Park is situated at the very center of Manhattan, New York City. It was set up to help establish an international reputation for New York, give a scenic backdrop for family carriage rides and give the working class citizens of New York a healthier place to be rather than spending their time in saloons.
The land for the park was first bought in 1853. The swamps, cliffs and boulders on this land made it incredibly unsuitable for development of housing and commercial buildings. Despite the fact that the land was inappropriate for housing, the creation of the park still required about 1600 poor people to be relocated from the shanties on this land. The layout of the park was chosen from 4 designs thought up by the residents of New York City as part of a competition. The chosen design was based on the landscape of England in those days.
Central Park was built as a public project with more than 20,000 New Yorkers pitching in to get the job done. Workers planted more than 270,000 trees in the park. Four roads were laid out underneath the park so that it would not disrupt too much traffic within Manhattan. Separate tracks within the park were made for carriages, pedestrians and horses. The pair of landscapers designed 40 bridges so the tracks would not have to cross each other at all.
The park was first opened for public use in the winter of 1859 where residents skated on manmade lakes built at the sites of former swamps. By 1865 the park received more than 7 million visitors per year. At first there were strict rules in place at Central Park. Group picnics were banned which discouraged many immigrants from visiting it. School boys were only allowed to play baseball in the park meadows if they had a note from their principal. In 1880 the working class New Yorkers managed to petition for concerts to occur on Sundays. Gradually other attractions were permitted such as the carousel, the zoo, goat rides and bicycle riding within the park. In 1927, after much petitioning from the working class people, a fully equipped playground was donated to be placed in the Southeastern meadow of the park.
In Holden’s time there were 20 playgrounds, the zoo was newly renovated, the tracks had been recently widened to accommodate motor vehicles and athletics fields were in place. In the 50’s and 60’s 2 ice-skating rinks, one pool, a permanent softball and baseball field was introduced and the Chess and Checkers house was added. In 1990 the park was used for jogging, roller skating, playing softball and baseball and bird watching.
The Park itself, at 3.4km², was the first landscaped park in the United States. These days Central Park hosts over twenty five million people per year. It is the most visited park in the United States. It has a castle, a Swedish marionette theater, a conservatory garden, a wildlife sanctuary, many sculptures and it even has its own New York City Police Department precinct.