For example, the conservancy was first to adopt a zero tolerance policy for garbage and graffiti. Just as Central Park was the birthplace of the urban park movement in the United States, it is leading the rebirth of urban parks through the Central Park Conservancy Institute for Urban Parks.
Construction of structures to house the animals continued through the s and into the s. During this period, the Menagerie became the scene of many rare wildlife births that contributed to rising annual attendance that reached a million by The Society operated under a special charter granted by the state legislature to create a public zoological park, to protect animals and to promote the science of zoology.
Once the society had control, construction of additional permanent buildings began immediately. Like the restoration of the park at the time, funding for restoring the zoo came from the Works Progress Administration. Once complete, the zoo was the model for others of the time. However, over the next 40 years or so, the facilities became inadequate for the animal population.
New construction began in , and on August 8, , the new Central Park Zoo opened to record crowds. It continues to be one of the most popular attractions in the city. Undoubtedly, the future of Central Park will continue to be shaped by the people who use it. With sustained popularity and good stewardship, the Park will remain an iconic symbol of the City, the State of New York and America.
Call us at Request Proposal. The History of Central Park. By Admin Posted NYC , Historical Places. Central Park in the 20th Century By the early 20th Century, the park was in serious decline due the social, political, and economic climate.
Contact us with any questions or comments. Newsletter Sign Up. Related Articles. In the first decade of the park's completion, it became clear for whom it was built. Located too far uptown to be within walking distance for the city's working class population, the park was a distant oasis to them. Trainfare represented a greater expenditure than most of the workers could afford, and in the s the park remained the playground of the wealthy; the afternoons saw the park's paths crowded with the luxurious carriages that were the status symbol of the day.
Women socialized there in the afternoons and on weekends their husbands would join them for concerts or carriage rides. Saturday afternoon concerts attracted middle-class audiences as well, but the six-day work week precluded attendance by the working class population of the city. As a result, workers comprised but a fraction of the visitors to the park until the late nineteenth century, when they launched a successful campaign to hold concerts on Sundays as well. As the city and the park moved into the twentieth century, the lower reservoir was drained and turned into the Great Lawn.
The first playground, complete with jungle gyms and slides, was installed in the park in , despite opposition by conservationists, who argued that the park was intended as a countryside escape for urban dwellers. The playground, used mostly by the children of middle and working class parents, was a great success; by the s, under the direction of parks commissioner Robert Moses, Central Park was home to more than twenty playgrounds.
As the park became less and less an elite oasis and escape, and was shaped more and more by the needs of the growing population of New York City, its uses evolved and expanded; by the middle of the century, ball clubs were allowed to play in the park, and the "Please Keep of the Grass" signs which had dotted the lush meadows of the park were a thing of the past.
In the sixties and seventies the park's maintenance entered a decline; despite its growing use for concerts and rallies, clean-up, planting, and general maintenance fell by the wayside.
A evaluation by Columbia University found many parts of the park in sad disrepair, from the low stone wall which surrounded it to the drainage system that kept the transverses from flooding. During the early s there was a massive attempt to involve New Yorkers in the upkeep of their beloved park, including the "You Gotta Have a Park" campaign and the formation of a private fundraising body, the Central Park Conservancy to fund repairs projects.
The extension of the boundaries to th Streetin brought the park to its current acres. The question of who should exercise political control of this new kind of public institution was a point of contention throughout the nineteenth century. After a new citycharter in restored the park to local control, the mayor appointed park commissioners.
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.
Vaux, assisted by Jacob Wrey Mould, designed more than forty bridges to eliminate grade crossings between the different routes. 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 , 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 when thousands of New Yorkers skated on lakes constructed on the site of former swamps. By , the park received more than seven million visitors a year. Middle-class New Yorkers also flocked to the park for winter skating and summer concerts on Saturday afternoons.
Stringent rules governing park use—for example, a ban on group picnics—discouraged many German and Irish New Yorkers from visiting the park in its first decade.
Small tradesmen were not allowed to use their commercial wagons for family drives in the park, and only school boys with a note from their principal could play ball on the meadows. New Yorkers repeatedly contested these rules, however, and in the last third of the century the park opened up to more democratic use. In the s, working-class New Yorkers successfully campaigned for concerts on Sunday, their only day of rest.
Park commissioners gradually permitted other attractions, from the Carousel and goat rides to tennis on the lawns and bicycling on the drives. Progressive reformers joined many working-class New Yorkers in advocating the introduction of facilities for active recreation. In , August Heckscher donated the first equipped playground, located on the southeastern meadow. Landscape architects and preservationists campaigned against these design innovations, however, and the site of the reservoir was naturalistically landscaped into the Great Lawn.
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