Central Park

Central Park In 1857, the Central Park Commission held the country’s first landscape design contest and selected the “Greensward Plan,” submitted by Frederick Law Olmsted, the park’s superintendent at the time, and Calvert Vaux, an English-born architect and former partner of the popular landscape gardener, Andrew Jackson Downing. The designers sought to create a pastoral landscape in the English romantic tradition. Open rolling meadows contrasted with the picturesque effects of the Ramble and the more formal dress grounds of the Mall (Promenade) and Bethesda Terrace. In order to maintain a feeling of uninterrupted expanse, Olmsted and Vaux sank four Transverse Roads eight feet below the park’s surface to carry cross-town traffic. Responding to pressure from local critics, the designers also revised their plan’s circulation system to separate carriage drives, pedestrian walks, and equestrian paths. Vaux, assisted by Jacob Wrey Mould, designed more than forty bridges to eliminate grade crossings between the different routes.

The building of Central Park was one of nineteenth-century New York’s most massive public works projects. Some 20,000 workers – Yankee engineers, Irish laborers, German gardeners, and native-born stonecutters – reshaped the site’s topography to create the pastoral landscape. After blasting out rocky ridges with more gunpowder than was later fired at the Battle of Gettysburg, workers moved nearly 3 million cubic yards of soil and planted more than 270,000 trees and shrubs. The city also built the curvilinear reservoir immediately north of an existing rectangular receiving reservoir. The park first opened for public use in the winter of 1859 when thousands of New Yorkers skated on lakes constructed on the site of former swamps. By 1865, the park received more than seven million visitors a year.

The Loeb Boathouse (drinks, lunch, dinner) Location: East Side between 74th and 75th Streets Details: Row Boat Rentals: Daily 10:00 a.m. to 5 p.m. $10 first hour and $2.50 each additional 15 minutes, $30 cash deposit required; Up to five people per boat. Bicycle Rental: $9 to $15 per hour; Must leave credit card, driver’s license or passport as deposit Central Park covers 843 acres, which is 6% of Manhattan. Its hours of operation are from 6:00 am until 1:00 am.

The Park stretches from Central Park South (59th St.) to 110th St. at the northern end and from 5th Ave. on the East Side to Central Park West (8th Ave.) on the West Side. (Quote from a runner) “We were preparing for a marathon while we lived in New York, so we were always on the lookout for places where we could go for a long run. On weekends, Central Park’s roads are closed to traffic, and the big loop is exactly six miles around, which was perfect for our needs. There are all kinds of other loops measured out, too: you can pick up a map at the Road Runners stand at the entrance around 90th St, on the east side. There are also lots of other runners out here, so you can pace yourself, and get silent encouragement from the local running community!”

Parts of the track in the mid-80s are very popular with dog walkers and this part of the track was featured at the beginning and end of the Spike Lee movie ’25th Hour’ if you’re interested in seeing what it looks like! There’s also another track that leads south from about 34th St along the East River, and which, one way or another, goes almost all of the way around the tip of Manhattan back up to 34th St on the west side. There are one or two interruptions, and it can be crowded in Battery Park, but if you really need to put in the miles, and don’t want to be doing multiple loops of the Park, try this option” The Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Reservoir as it is officially called, is THE place to go jogging in New York. (The building where she lived/died is on 85th and 5th by the entrance to the park)”There is a main entrance to the jogging track is at East 90th Street, but you can join it at any number of places. The 1.58 mile track is almost always busy with joggers and noticable presence of police patrols is welcoming. The views over to the skyline of New York is quite unsupassed. I used it to complete my ‘depletion run’ a week before the 2002 NY marathon. As I was running for about three hours it was interesting to see how the type of jogger changed between about 7AM and 10Am in the morning. To begin with, it was all high powered execs in the latest gear, then a few more ‘serious’ runners and by 10AM I was jogging with the hoards of little old ladies taking their constitutional. Just one tip – always run anticlockwise or you will gain the wrath of other joggers.”

Location: Carriages Rides Date(s): January 01, 2006 – January 01, 2007 Time(s): All day event Every day of every week of every month of the year Taking a ride in one of the colorful horse-drawn carriages that line Central Park South is a great way to see the park. Tucked up warmly underneath the blankets, checking out the scenery and skyline, is one of the most romantic ways to spend time in New York City. The Zoo The first incarnation of the zoo in Central Park came about almost by accident. It began with New Yorkers dropping off unwanted animals at the arsenal. These included everything from 72 white swans to a black bear cub (everything, that is, except the apocryphal alligators that found their way to the sewer system.) In 1864 the legislature approved the construction of a several buildings to house the growing collection and the Central Park Menagerie was born. In 1934 Parks Commissioner Robert Moses used Works Progress Administration (WPA) funds to construct what was, for its time, a state-of-the-art facility. Designed with a storybook theme the new Central Park Zoo provided a greatly improved home for the animals and a wonderful place to visit them. As time passed, however, it became apparent that the zoo was becoming woefully inadequate for the residents. In the spring of 1980 the Wildlife Conservation Society entered into an agreement with the City of New York to renovate and operate the zoo on behalf of the Parks Department. Construction was finished by 1985 and the new Central Park Zoo was a reality, and the park once again was home to a facility which is considered one of the finest of its kind. The zoo in Central Park now attracts nearly a million visitors a year from all over the world. The new zoo is divided into several different sections which provide the animals with homes as close to their natural habitat as possible. These include tropic, temperate and polar zones that house everything from tiny leafcutter ants to the hugely popular polar bears. The zoo is also actively involved the preservation of endangered species, providing a home for rare tamarin monkeys, Wyoming toads, thick-billed parrots, and red pandas. Rumors of a secret exhibit featuring English-speaking cab drivers have never been confirmed. All text in the Zoo section was taken fromCentral Park Zoo Wildlife Guide Bookunless otherwise stated. Location: East Side between 63rd and 66th Streets Detail: – Hours: April – Oct. Monday – Friday 10 am – 5 pm, Weekends 10 am – 5:30 pm; Nov. – March Daily 10 a.m. – 4:30 p.m. – Admission to Wildlife Center includes admission to Children’s Zoo: Adults $8.00; Senior Citizens (65+) $4; Children 3-12 $3.00; Children under 3, Free – General Information: 212-439-6500 Cinderella Samba Date(s): April 18, 2006 – September 26, 2006 Time(s): 10:30 AM – 2:00 PM Event scheduling: Every Sunday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday of every week of Every April, May, June, July, August, September Cinderella Samba! Set in the lush landscape of Brazil, this timeless fairy tale finds Cinderella and her Prince in a Samba contest at the Carnival Ball. Performances are at 10:30 am and 12 noon, Tuesday through Thursday. The Saturday and Sunday performances are at 1 pm. For more info call 212.988.9093