Is central park was the first great civic work of art in this country. This young democracy, europeans had hoped we would fail. We did not. They said, you may succeed economically, but you will never put anything out culturally that is interesting. What do you know . We fold them. Fooled them. We put out central park. The city that put out the spark, it is a city that has grown. We had 60,000 people in a city that barely stretched from the battery down the road. That was new york in 1800. By 1860, the city had stretched up to 59th street. The already know the manhattan is going to cover the whole of manhattan island. Only went tocity 60s street. Out of park was built westchester. In 1811,commissioners the hudson river is at the top, east river is down below. The builtup city is to left of us. ,hen they laid out the grid ifir mental attitude was, people want recreation, they will go to the riverfronts. Those with money would buy a states on the riverfronts and they would have gorgeous he estates. Ees over by the 1830s and 1840s when the Industrial Revolution hits the city and industry lines up both riverfronts. Both the hudson and the east river our industrialized. By the 1840s and 50s, those with money, middleclass and upperclass, retreat to the center of the island. The center of the island, fifth avenue and broadway. If you had money, you did all of your living, working, shopping in the center of the island. You never went to the riverfronts. That was true until today. We are now going back to the river. You cannot get me into a kayak in the hudson. It is a different world today. Because they figured the riverfronts would be your main recreational areas, the sixissioners only had little squares. The only open space. Those squares, the museum of natural history. It is the only square left from the 1811. Everything else, you would go to the riverfront to enjoy. Little did they know that the riverfront would be closed off and by the 1850s, and central park is being discussed and industryer, you have polluting the riverfronts. Look at broadway. The elegant upscale shopping district, theater district. We like to call it the boulevard of america. I go to broadway today and i avoid broadway. I go down green street, mercer. I do anything to avoid broadway. I cannot take the crowds. Youre on the left and, on the left, here is a print of what that area looks like. It shows you that we were in in your face city. The slums. We talked about income disparity as one of the big problems here in america. Our new mayor is all about that. If you want to know about income to a time, go in machine. A chinatown today. That is the five points district. The difference between the two was a 1015 minute walk. It shows you how all of this was shoved together. Deadich lived in the center of the island. There is fifth avenue. 34th is crossing it will stop crossing it. They could be one million miles from the five points. Middle class lived in the levittowns of their days. The man of the house today horse horse care or ltrain to work. You would think that they would have created park space. Nothing. Typical of the way americans build cities. Whether it is brownstone or levittown in the 1950s. There are no community amenities. Age inharton comes of 1870s new york. In the 1930s, she writes a glance, thatkward talked about growing up in this new york. She hated the brownstones. Of the straitjacket of brownstone houses, there were no beautiful piazzas or fountains. None of that existed in new york. It may have been an exciting was an ugly one. That is what she said. To show you how crowded it was, here is the middle of manhattan and, on the other side, the east river. The hudson river. Play,er to have fun or you had to take a boat. You would leave manhattan and go to hoboken. The Stevens Family owned hoboken and created the north side of hoboken. I will not get into that argument. Fields were a way of escaping the city. Could youon was, why not stay in new york city and have this experience of something rural, green, and landscaped . Everything new york was not. The man who thought about this was a brilliant man. His name was downing. Birthday it is easy to know his birthday. He grows up in the Hudson River Valley. , growing up in the 1820s and 1830s, sees the Hudson River Valley industrializing and being polluted. He asked himself, what is the etween the built environment to the natural environment. In the 21st about century. He is the first ecologist will stop he practiced Landscape Architecture will stop he had all sorts of different names for it. We think of landscape architects, we think of flowerbeds. He was a city planner and a metropolitan planner. He was all about the environment. The whole environment. A brilliant man. Was getting bigger and bigger. It was like a whale developing an front of you. He said that the trouble was that the city wellers are not near nature. It takes something away from you as a human being to have no connection to nature. If you are in the middle of new york city, you have no connection to nature. He suggested central park. It is his idea. He got on the wrong boat going down the hudson river. The boat caught fire and he dies. He had already brought over from england a professional landscape architect. Heorder to make a living, needed a package. He was a landscape architect. He brings over a man named vau x. Downing dies two years after. Ux decides to stay and carries on the idea of a park for new york city. And, people know downing. They do not know vaux that well. People were screaming, we need a park. The question was, where . Island. A sector of the we call that central park west. Rough a swampy area with outcroppings. It is where malaria is developed. People hated this area of manhattan. It was swampy and pestilential. Between a smaller area 66 and 75th street. Some of you know that Edith Wharton came from the jones family. This was her estate. It was a wooded estate on the east river. Industrialization was creeping up. Of the1850s, most development was in the left of the photograph. Imagine if they had done that . They could have walked to a gorgeous woods. Wouldnt it have been wonderful . They did not do it. It was decided by central land in the middle of the island. The real estate people said, how much parkland do you want for this population . There will be nothing left to develop. You notice, there is nothing left to develop. Whats disappeared and it became commercial property. Who actually created central park . These spirit of downing, two fellows. They were both brilliant in their own right. They Stay Together as partners through the 1860s and 1870s. They had a different story after that. I am speaking of olmsted and vaux. Olmsted has been forgotten about for years. Here he is on the right. To the left, it is him as a young man. To the right, the grand old man of american planning will stop the last thing he did was the plenty for the chicago worlds fair. This was the man. Man whobecame the brought the idea of the city park to america and, even, the National Park. The reason we have a National Park system is because of olmsted will stop olmsted. It was vaux. He knew that. He was the one who kept downings ideas alive. He saw the original plan or central park. Four central park. Plan for central park. He needed a charismatic figure will stop that was olmsted. There is not a figure charismatic figure. That was olmsted. They, of course, were talked out of it. This guy has guts. He could stand up to the new york politicians. Everybody. The one who pulled him into it. Olmsted would never have been part of the planning or design a central park. Vaux knew he had it in him. Went off, as he always did. He was off to found the red cross will stop it was the civil war. He was off to do a mining expedition. Only five years later, did this understand that this is really his forte. He only understood that after prospect park. He pulled him back in four central park. Vaux is the unsung hero. 1842, across from liverpool, the beatles, many years later. This is a park. The people go to see where beatles originally played. Aboutll as it was, it is a third of the size of central park. They are all royal land, open to the public by the grace of the royal family. This was opened for the people by the people and of the people. It was a true public park. Speaking of london, if you know. Ondon, this map of it the old city of london. We call it the financial district. As you get into the 1700s and after the great fire of london, the middle and upper classes moved to the west end. They were attracted to the west and because it did not have the congestion of the old city. Land it was next to great that the royal family owned and used as hunting grounds. Henry viii is running around shooting boars. Or, whatever he was hunting. Who knows, with henry viii . Theroyal family, charles second, they turn this land , into ak and kensington single landscape. You have beautiful squares to live around. When you cross park lane, it is like you are alice entering wonderland. Green,er a wonderful calledmsted and vaux their plan for central park. Hyde, and, kensington create a carpet of green. It is like crossing 59th street. You go down into the pond. New york city falls away in five seconds. They could have gotten their ideas from this. Tead and vaux presented the proposal. He uses the new medium of photography. This is a photograph of what the centralone section of park looked like. It was a pestilential mass. He showed the commissioners of central park what this area would look like if they adopt x when. Sted and vau he would plan. He would show. Brilliant idea. Betweeninal plan was 59th street and 106th street. It would be called central park west. Two,realize, by 18 city that the norther end of the park need to be stretched because the landscape demanded it. By 1862, that the northern end of the park needed to be stretched because the landscape demanded it. To givelly was meant new yorkers crossing 59th street the feeling that they were in the catskills. This is the era of the Hudson River School of painters will stop painters. Concorde. Not the there in the middle of the catskills. One ofe william bryant, the leading publishers of the day. Publishers have that kind of power in the day. He was a tremendous supporter of a park for new york. He is one of the fathers of central park and, the whole point was, this is what you find. This is the routine in the northwest corner of the park. In the northwest corner of the park. When you go through it, it is like the adirondacks. An englisha from part is a chinese garden. We are used to parks that are french. Very formal will stop everything is very formal and very geometric. A new idea century, of park design became popular. It was meant to become rustic. There were several sources. One was the discovery of the chinese garden. This is Staten Island. Toe people feel like going Staten Island is like going to china. It is not. You can take a ferry and a short bus ride and the where this is located. It was built by chinese craftsmen. It is an extraordinary garden to go through because it really is a miniature version of the rustic world. The natural world. It is not a formal garden. It is a rustic garden. Everything is carefully designed and the architectural elements carefully mash with the natural almonds. With the natural elements. Slide is the the original design in 1857. After they tweak it a bit and extended it, this is the final plan of 18581859. It varies in different ways from the original. One of the things that is interesting by the way, they had to design a park around two reservoirs. Is noweiving reservoir the great lawn. Left, ford is what is those of you who know central park. 1860s, they built a bigger reservoir. It is called the own assess ssis reservoir. It is a very narrow, three block e, part. Series of small miniature landscapes that have no relationship to one another. That is why, when you walk around central park, you are always lost. It is like the village. Five different street systems. Do you know how i know where i am in central park . I look at the buildings. The lampposts are coded. It is not worth it. Look at the skyline. The northern part of the park is different. It is three different landscapes and looks forward a few years later. Woods,or landscapes, the the meadow, and water. And the at 1 hundred st stream and waterfall that run between the pool and lake. Water, woods, and meadow. If you are there a few times, eyu get to know where th are. When they build prospect park, it is water, woods, and meadow. Very beautifully done. Another thing, they were criticized by the rich. May only had a horse path around the new reservoir. Minute said, wait a why cant you give us more horse paths. They created a whole system. To make sure the equestrians did 40 collide, they created bridges that act as traffic interchanges. The equestrians, the carrions, and the pedestrians. The carriages, and the pedestrians. Your head is spinning. Is the bicycle, taxi going to hit me . They wanted to make sure that when you came through central park, you did not have to worry about that. They have three different systems. ,he socialists are screaming look at how the rich affected how central park was built. They wanted to keep the menagerie. Thearsenal was becoming menagerie for new york city. They were popular with workingclass people. They were bringing back exotic animals and it became a thing, if you are a working class, to go to the menagerie and look at the animals. It was arstood that democracy and you have to work with people. People theyth the were given. Look at what happens. The southern part of the park has two beautiful meadows. One is now called the hampshire playground. Transversal, what design,l, the original in the original design, the playground. You have to cross the park. They knew that, one day, all of this land would be developed. It was not in 1859. It was coming. Can you imagine the other plants . Plans . X creatednd vau transversals that were out of sight. Transversals that were out of sight. Stuck in traffic or , every time you are in central park, you be run down by something crossing the park stop here, the traffic is out of sight. Over the transversal, they build bridges and pathways that had planters on both sides. You do not realize that there are planters on both sides with trees. You have no ideas that you are walking over a highway. Central park new was going on politically in the world. The original metal on the southeast corner was called the Parade Ground. They are part of every city. It is the Parade Ground. Every city has a Parade Ground and has to be proud when they show the colors. They would march. 1850s, Parade Grounds had a political connotation because of immigrants. They were going on about immigrants in the 1850s. And, native americans, white people, were being shoved out of jobs by immigrants. Immigrant ways were becoming popular. People who were born here resented that. There was a lot of resentment and racial strife between irish and yankee, two different races, as far as they were concerned, in the 1850s. They had their version of Tea Party People having a demonstration saying, get rid of these foreigners. Show you, this is the famous opera house. Version of an english soccer riot. It was over a shakespearean actor. White americaith and foreigners coming in, for an ignizing american culture. Section becomes the green. They use cheap gardeners who never unionize with no pensions. We were afraid of these things. They were big and woolly. You did not know what they were going to do. We walked around these things. They were not there when i was a kid. We would see she. Sheep. The first time i saw a cow milked, i swore off milk for a very long time. The meadows in central park are a brilliant idea. Beautiful photographs. These meadows were brilliant ideas. Shock new yorkers with of sanity. Obscenity. You cannot shock them. Wear a dress . Who cares . You know what shocks new yorkers, open space . New yorkers . Open space. By the way, the way the original ok, inrked, you had the original plan, if you came into the park from Columbus Circle into the middle, there was a rock outcropping. It was very popular. The meadow is popular with the peoplel players and the like to be an umpire. Sitting on top of empire rock, minutes from Columbus Circle. You can see the trees that frame the transversal. Ridor thata corr open to the meadow. You could see all the way up to the lake that was at 73rd street. Approximately 10 blocks. Half a mile. Crowded and congested city, you come into central and have a vista that takes you all the way up to the lake. It really was gorgeous. The trees filled in the view vistas. It is not possible. Nothing shock you. Green. Peace. Quiet. Sky. All of that is shocking to a new yorker. When they came into the meadow, the shock of it and, this is such a print idea that could be brilliantything idea that could be adapted to anything. They were not against organized sports. The feeling was, bring in your equipment and take it with you. Leave it a meadow. Then, it is a pristine meadow. The next people maybe want to have a rock concert. They leave. The next people want to have a picnic. They do their thing and they leave. It always becomes a meadow that is ready to be used for something else. Robert moses wanted to drop baseball diamonds anywhere he saw green space. The problem with a baseball diamond is that it is always a baseball diamond. Have yous a meadow, ever been in a meadow during a snowstorm . It is beautiful. The snow is over, get rid of it. Would it be just as gorgeous it was a baseball diamonds . Baseball diamond . Be used forould different things, besides sheep. You notice the tennis courts. Go ahead, have fun. When you go home, you take the net, the structure, all of it with you. That is what they did. Mind organized sports. Leave the meadow the way that you found it. The other thing about central park was the road system. What a brilliant idea. Three different ways and you never collided with each other. A wonderful idea. The bicycle was not invented. You had a roadway system. The the equestrian original paths ran to the southern end of the park. It turned northward and went to the reservoir. Robert moses destroyed the southern end of the path for various reasons. From the 1930s on, it only existed from the southwest corner. Now, there are no equestrians in central park. There are just too many people for safe equestrian riding in the park. The southern end of that system is gone. The 40 bridges that they created, olmsted and vaux. Moldhis assistant, jacob mould. They are made of bridgestone, all sorts of different materials. Different. E is in the neoclas