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Exhibit Highlights 150th Anniversary of Central Park Design
By
John Del Signore
Published Apr 28, 2008
Modified Apr 28, 2008
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By
John Del Signore
Published Apr 28, 2008
Modified Apr 28, 2008
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John Bachman’s lithograph of Olmsted and Vaux’s design via Racontours.
150 years ago today the Board of Commissioners of Central Park chose the “Greensward plan” submitted by Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux for the design of America’s first major urban public park. Except for the rock outcrops, the park is almost entirely man-made; the meadows were swamps until the designers had them drained and dumped tens of thousands of cartloads of soil to fill them out. And the bodies of water were created using the same water pipes that supplied city residents.
Sara Cedar Miller, author of the book Central Park, An American Masterpiece, says the park is “America’s greatest example of the marriage of aesthetics and engineering. Above ground it is a designed landscape that copies nature so closely that it disguises its own fabrication, and below ground, it is an efficient technological system.”
According to the Central Park Conservancy, the Greensward plan won the competition in large part due to its solution to the problem of four east/west traffic crossings. It was Olmsted and Vaux’s idea to sink the transverse roads out of sight, and this morning the 72nd Street Cross Drive was to be renamed "Olmsted & Vaux Way" during a ceremony at Bethesda Terrace.
Through June 19th the Arsenal on 64th Street and Fifth Avenue is presenting "Celebrating Greensward," a free exhibition of the original large-scale drawings of the architects’ plan, as well as 71 photographs of the park collected over the years. Details here.
Tagged
150
anniversary
arsenal
Calvert Vaux
central park
design
exhibit
frederick law olmsted
Greensward
John Del Signore
Originally from the Albany area, John Del Signore has called NYC home since 1995. In addition to his thousands of meticulously-crafted bespoke blog posts for Gothamist, his writing has also been published in The Awl, Deadspin, The Nervous Breakdown, and performed at The Brick Theater in Brooklyn.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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