THE JAMES WATSON HUGHES MEMORIAL LIBRARY NEW DORP, STATEN ISLAND BULLETIN OF The New York Public Library Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations VOLUME 32 APRIL, 1928 NUMBER 4 THE NEW YORK PARKS EXHIBITION CENTRAL PARK IN RETROSPECT-THE PARK SYSTEM TO-DAY INTRODUCTORY NOTE BY THEODORA KIMBALL HUBBARD HE place which Central Park has long held in the hearts of the citizens TH played in the development of the City as a great metropolis, and with the Park's widespread influence on American art and life. Central Park is the first American expression in terms of greensward, tree, and lake of the public need for something more than bricks and mortar to make urban existence wholesome and pleasant - an expression which the genius of the Park's designers, Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux, caused to transcend difficulties of lack of precedent, of magnitude of construction and cost, and of political interference, adhering always to their principle: "The Park throughout is a single work of art, and as such, subject to the primary law of every work of art, namely, that it shall be framed upon a single, noble motive to which the design of all its parts, in some more or less subtle way, shall be confluent and helpful." No words express better than these the "solid ground of resistance to dangers" which constantly threaten Central Park—and many other parks throughout the country—and which Park defenders can use as a rallying clarion call for the preservation of the Park's integrity. Among the names of the men connected with the development and protection of Central Park-in addition to the designers, Olmsted and Vauxnone is better known in the history of New York than Andrew H. Green, [ 207 ] who conceived of the Park as a great educational influence in the future metropolis, and who not only guarded it from inappropriate uses and political spoliation, but also promoted the application of park and planning principles to other great public improvements in the upper part of the City of New York. There will come to mind also the names of Samuel Parsons, long Superintendent of Parks and Park Commissioner; William A. Stiles, as editorial writer for the New York Tribune, and editor of Garden and Forest, a staunch defender of park ideals; Colonel George E. Waring, Jr. and Ignaz I. Pilat, concerned respectively with the drainage and the planting of Central Park in harmony with the designers' schemes. As a novel and successful municipal enterprise, Central Park holds a unique position in the history of American public works. Even in the early stages of the Park's construction the Commissioners could declare: "If the Park is regarded in a pecuniary point of view only, it is the most profitable enterprise ever undertaken by the city, and in the higher aspect of its moral advantages, its sanitary benefits, its features of attraction and interest to large numbers of people who seek amusement, the Central Park, with its annually developing beauties, will remain, if its management is such as it should be, through successive seasons and centuries an ever changing and yet enduring testimony to the wisdom of its projectors." And in 1884, when the enlargement of the park area of the City of New York was being considered, an open letter on the subject, signed by some of the most substantial men of the City, was addressed to the Mayor, citing the financial success of Central Park as an argument for further investment by the City in similar enterprises. Indeed, in 1884 it was estimated that, leaving aside increases in taxable value due to ordinary causes, there was a credit balance to the City of $17,000,000 after all expenses for construction and maintenance of the Park had been paid. The impetus given by Central Park to outdoor recreation was immediately recognized. In addition to rambling in pleasant outdoor surroundings, the fashion of skating was practically created by the use of the Park lake; and, promoted by the success in New York, the fashion spread throughout the country. Again, while in 1857 town riding was so little practiced that scarcely a half-dozen citizens of New York kept riding horses and no suggestion was made for bridle paths prior to the design of Olmsted and Vaux, it was not long before hundreds of horsemen made daily use of the Park rides. Outdoor exercise for the recreation of school children, for which no previous provision had been made, by 1868 had come to be appreciated as most important for the salutary effect upon the community. It was a matter of record that "the attractions of the Park appear to have increased very much, among all classes, the disposition for out-of-door exercise." Beside stimulating active sports, the Park gave a general impetus to spending time out-of-doors, not only to citizens of New York but to those of other cities following her example in undertaking the development of a park. The Commissioners remarked in 1866: "The almost undeveloped capacity for enjoyment of broad, simple, natural lines, forms and colors, being gradually fostered by habitual visits to the city Park, the taste grows by what it feeds on, and ere long demands something fresh that shall be more broad, more simple, and more natural; the result of all this being that thousands of residents of this city acquire the habit of going into the country every now and then, in search of interesting scenery." The effect of Central Park on the landscape art was recognized as early as 1863, when the Commissioners stated: "It is no exaggeration to say that this work is doing much towards elevating the general public taste of the country, not only in the more extended and spacious public and private dwellings and gardens, but in the adornment of the more numerous and less pretentious habitations of our rural population." It was the development of a great landscape design in Central Park that early gave rise to a profession of landscape architecture in America, although earlier tendencies in the work of Downing, Cleveland, and others, pointed to the development of a new art when the right opportunity should give scope to genius. The style of landscape design, with its permeating artistic unity, exemplified in the broad meadows and picturesque naturalistic passages of Central Park - and again in the Prospect Park of Brooklyn, and in the successive rural parks of many other cities — tracing its lineage to the best existing park-like scenery in America and Europe, became a distinct esthetic conception, an American "landscape school," the principles of which are still valid and accepted. The inception of the American park movement in Central Park, strengthened by the closely following success of Prospect Park, was recognized by the Commissioners of Central Park in their farewell report of 1870, when they stated that "few cities of considerable population on this continent are now without schemes more or less advanced for the establishment of extensive parks for the pleasure of their people." In 1880 Mr. Olmsted himself, speaking before the American Social Science Association, said: "Twenty-five years ago we had no parks, park-like or otherwise, which might not better have been called something else. Since then a class of works so called has been undertaken which, to begin with, are at least spacious, and which hold possibilities of all park-like qualities. Upon twenty of these works in progress there has been thus far expended upwards of forty millions of dollars— well nigh if not fully fifty millions." With a large number of these parks Mr. Olmsted, first in collaboration with Mr. Vaux and later independently, had to do, so that the experience gained on Central and Prospect parks was directly applied to the development of public improvements in other cities. The political dangers and difficulties which have threatened and hindered the success of practically all great parks appeared in New York in intensified form and can be found nowhere more strikingly described than in Mr. Olmsted's own pamphlet, "Spoils of the Park.” The influence of the Park on public improvements and the significance of park planning in the City of New York to the history of American city planning have not been fully realized. An immediate effect of Central Park in increasing the desirability of the surrounding land was to create a demand for improved communication between the lower part of the City and the region of the Park, and later for a comprehensive development of the upper part of Manhattan Island. There is no space here to show how the street and boulevard plans of New York and Brooklyn in the sixties and early seventies formed the beginnings of modern city planning. The planners themselves - Olmsted and Vaux -- keenly realized that the design of public parks and related park systems could vitally affect the structure of those cities which dared to follow the brilliant example of New York. The path they followed is indicated in detail in Part I of "Central Park as a Work of Art and as a Great Municipal Enterprise, 1853-1895," being Volume 2 of Professional Papers of Frederick Law Olmsted, Sr., edited by Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr., and Theodora Kimball. In the seventy years from 1858, when construction was begun on the accepted design for Central Park, to the present day, there has been a great development in specialized types of open spaces to meet the formulated public needs for outdoor recreation. In Greater New York to-day will be found block playgrounds for young children, play fields for active sports, neighborhood parks, recreational waterfronts and pleasure beaches, regional landscape reservations, and great parkways running from the more closely built districts out into the surrounding country. Not all of these units are fitted into the comprehensive and well-rounded system of recreation areas which must be developed to meet the growing needs of the largest metropolitan district in the world. The thorough studies conducted by the Regional Plan of New York and Its Environs will point the way toward such a system which can ultimately be encompassed only by the coöperation of the many component communities. |