Art in the united states. The New York Historical society hosted this hourlong event. Tonight, we are taking a look at what is its own country, central park. Theye were wondering why put central park but it is its own country in a way. Its amazing, a book that came out a few years ago, a book by miller gave us a new view of central park. Central park was and still is the first rate civic work of art here in this country. Europeans had hoped we would fail. We did not. We were succeeding. They said you may succeed economically but you will never really put anything out culturally that is interesting. Youre nothing but a bunch of carpenters and bricklayers forget what do you know . We fold them. We put out central park that would be from 18581859. The city had grown from being practically nothing in 1800. We had 60,000 people in a city that barely stretched from the battery down to City Hall Park that was new york in 1800. By 1860 or so, the city had stretched up to 59th street. They already know in the 1850s that manhattan, new york city, is going to cover the whole of manhattan island. They knew that. The builtup city which central park is being designed and built, the builtup city only went to 60th street. We need to remember that central park was built as if it was in westchester. Thats really where it was considering what the rest of the city was like. You are looking at manhattan on its side. The hudson river is at the top and the east river is down below. The batteries to the left. When they laid out the grid in 1811, the grid street plan from houston street to 100 50 that street, their mental attitude was that if people want recreation, they will go to the riverfronts which were sylvan, meadow dan quite beautiful. Those with money would buy estates on the riverfront and they would have gorgeous estates running down to the river. There were areas where the public at access the river and the commissioners in 1811 thats what thought thats what the world would be forever. At last for 30 years and was over by the 1830s and 1840s when the Industrial Revolution hits the city and industry climbs up both riverfronts. The hudson river and east river are industrialized and they are becoming sewers and by the 1840s and 1850s, those with money and the middleclass and upperclass, retreat to the center of the island. Fifth avenue and broadway. If you had money beginning in the 1830s and 1840s commuted all of your living, working, shopping and every thing in the center of the island. You never went to the riverfronts and that was true for 150 years until today in our postindustrial era. We are now going back to the river but you cannot hit me into a kayak in the hudson. [laughter] youew up in a world where do not touch hudson river water. Its a different world today. Because they figured there riverfronts would the commissioners only had between the space 650 squares. Six little squares. That was it. The squares were the size of the museum of natural history, which is right across the street. The only square left from the 1811 grid. That is how big the squares were going to be. There would be six of those and that was it. Everything else, youre going to go to the riverfronts and enjoy. Little did they know, the riverfront would be closed off. By the 1850s, when central park is being discussed and argued over we do not discuss, we argue in new york. You had industry polluting the riverfronts. Look at broadway. The elegant upscale shopping district, theater district, Department Store district. We like to call it the boulevard of america. It has little sidewalks that are narrow. I have been to broadway today. What is now called soho. I actually avoid broadway. I will do anything to avoid broadway. I cant take the crowds. Look what it was like in the 1850s when it was the elegant, upscale shopping district. On the left is a print of what the area looked like. Again, people crowded. Pushing, shoving. We were an in your face city even 150 years ago. 15 minutes walk from the elegant part of the city was the slums. About income disparity. In the early 20th century, it was one of the problems in new york. Go into a time machine and go back to 1850s new york. On the right, youre looking at the lower east side, chinatown today read that is the five points district. The difference between the two was literally a 10 to 15 minute walk. Rich lived on 5th avenue in the center of the island as far away from the riverfront as they could. There is fifth avenue. 34th is crossing it. It is elegant rowhouses. They could be a million miles from the five points prayed they would not know. Middleclass people lived in the brownstones built by the thousands. City, theseersey lived in a narrow house. The man of the house to pay force or train you took a horse or train to work. The lady of the house ran the home. These neighborhoods that were being created, well, you would think they would have created park space, a sports field, nothing. These are typical of the way americans build their cities, whether it is these brownstones or leather town of the 1960s. There are no parks, clubhouses, amenities. As a matter of fact, edith wharton, the famous writer, who grew up in 1870s new york, as an old woman in the 1930s she wrote a memoir, a backwards glance, and she talked about growing up in this new york, and she hated it. She hated it, as most people did. She hated the brownstones as most people did by the early 20th century. On top of the straitjacket of brownstone houses, there were no beautiful piazzas or fountains. In beautiful cities, they always have piazzas. None of that in new york. It may have been an exciting city but it must have been an ugly one. That is what she said. Was,ow you how crowded it there is manhattan. On the other side is the east river. On the other side, the hudson river. In order to have some fun, in order to play, in order to play a ballgame if you wanted to, you had to take a boat, and where did you go . Hoboken. You went to the Elysian Fields. The Stevens Family basically owned hoboken, and that basically became the playground of new york. Some people think the first baseball game was played there. I wont get into that argument. The point is the Elysian Fields were a way of escaping the city. The question was why couldnt you stay in the city and have this experience of something rural, green, landscapes, beautiful, everything new york was not . Well, the man who thought about all of this was a brilliant man, our first environmentalist. His name was a. J. Downing. Its very easy to know his name because he was named for andrew jackson. He grows up in the Hudson River Valley. His father is a gardener. His father is a great is a gardener to the great estates. He sees the Hudson River Valley industrializing. He sees this Beautiful Valley being polluted. He begins to ask himself, what is the relationship of the built environment to the Natural Environment . What do we talk about today . Green this, green that. This is what he is talking about. He is basically americas first ecologist. The way he made a living . He practiced what we call today landscape architecture, but back then there was no name for it. He had all different names for it. When we think of landscape our tax the less architects, we think of flowerbeds for the wealthy. He was a city planner, a metropolitan planner. He was all about landscaping the whole environment. A brilliant man, and this is the fellow who understood that the bigger the cities got and they were getting bigger and bigger they were like a whale. The trouble is, city dwellers today are not even near nature. And it takes something away from you as a human being to never have any connection with nature, and if you are in the middle of new york city, you dont have any connection with nature, and he suggested a great park. Central park was his idea. The problem is, he gets on a boat going down the hudson river, it catches on fire and he dies. Drowning at the age of 37 in 1852. He had already brought over from england a professional architect to help him. He was a landscape architect. He did not know much about architecture, but in order to make a living, he did landscaping. He brings over a fellow named calvin vaux from england who is an interesting fellow. Vaux decides to stay and who carries on his idea of a park for new york city. People know downing. They dont know vaux that well. In the 1850s, tremendous debate in new york city everyone was , screaming we need a park. The problem was where. There were two choices. One was a sector in the middle of the island between fifth and 8th avenue. We would call that central park west. 59th106th street was swampy, it was where malaria developed because of mosquitoes. People hated this area of manhattan. Areahere was another 66th75th street called the joneses woods. Some of you may know the name of the jones family. This was her familys estate on the edge of the east river. Gradually, industrialization was creeping towards it, but in the 1850s, most of the building was south of 50th and to the left. The city couldve bought jones od and central park and the green belts nesting them. Can you imagine if we had done that . You could walk from a green way to a gorgeous woods overlooking the east river. Wouldnt that be wonderful . But it is not wonderful. They never did it. When the city decided to buy the central land in the middle of the island, the real estate people said how much parkland do you want for this population . I mean, there will be nothing left to develop. You notice there is nothing left to develop, right . [laughter] but anyway, jones wood disappeared and it became commercial property. Well, who actually created central park . Again, in the spirit of aj downing, these two formed a brilliant partnership. They were both brilliant in their own right. They only stayed together as partners through the 1860s and 1870s. They broke up and had a different story after that. I am speaking of Frederick Olmstead and calvin vaux, the guy that downing brought over from england. Olmstead was forgotten for years. Now he has been brought out. Here he is on the right. Here he is on the right. The last thing he did was the planning for the chicago world fair of 1893, the great white city on lake michigan. But this was the man who brought the idea of the city park to america and even the National Park. The reason we have a National Park system is basically because of him. On the lowerux, left. Short, english, quiet. And nobody paid attention to him. This is america. He knew that. He said the plan for the park was awful. He knew it could be better and that he needed a charismatic figure that would really draw peoples attention and that was olmstead. Olmstead, apparently, was extremely charismatic. People think he was manic depressive. He would have long bouts of depression and then he would come out of it and he could run the world. He could take on politicians, the wealthy. He could take on workingclass people. He ran a Mining Operation in california. The miners had to be paid less or the mine would go bankrupt. They almost had a riot. He talked them out of it. This guy had guts. This guy could stand up to new york politicians to california miners. Olmstead by himself would never have been part of the planning of central park, the design of central park. Vaux knew he had it in him and he talked him into it. Designedy, after they central park, he went off to the red cross. It was the civil war. He went to do the mining expedition in california. Only when vaux called him back five years later did olmstead really understand that designing parks was really his destiny. He only understood that after Prospect Park. Vaux pulled him in for central park and back for Prospect Park. So, vaux is the unsung hero. Where could they have gotten their ideas for a public park . 1842, liverpool, think the beatles many years later. This is birkenhead park. Some people go here to see where the beatles originally played. In 1842, small as it was, it is about one third the size of central park, this is the first true public park in english history. You may say that london has beautiful parks. Yes, it does, but they are all royal land open to the public by the grace of the monarchy. This was a true public park. This was opened for the people, by the people, of the people. It was a true public park. By the way, speaking of london, if you know london, here is a map of it. The red part on the right is the old Medieval City of london. We call it the financial district today. In the 1600s1700s, after the great fire of london, the middle and upper classes are moving to the west. We call it the west end. One of the reasons they are attracted to the west end, aside from the fact that it did have did not have the noise and congestion of the city, was this great land where the royal used as hunting grounds. Henry ates was hunting. But eventually the royal family turns this land, saint jaynes as part, hyde park saint jamess park, hyde park and Kensington Park into a single landscape. When you cross park lane, you live in the tony west end. You have all those beautiful squares you live around. When you cross park lane, it is almost like you are alice. You fall through the well and enter wonderland. From the very builtup west end, you enter a wonderful green world, which is what olmstead and vaux called their plan for central park. You can feel almost the countryside starting on the other side of park lane. St. James is in green park. They all create an uninterrupted carpet of green. The moment you cross over them, it is almost as though the country has come up to the door of london. Its like crossing 59th street. You go down into the pond. New york city falls away. It is in five seconds. They could have very well gotten their ideas from this. 1858, olmstead and vaux present their proposal. Vaux was a Brilliant Media person. He was some guy. He uses the new medium of photography, equivalent to using twitter today, and this is a photograph of what one section of central park looks like. It was a pestilential swamp. It looked a mess. That is what it looks like in the photograph. Down below is a watercolor showing the commissioners what this area will look like if they adopt the plan. At the top is a map. They would show you where in the central part plan this area is. Brilliant, brilliant idea and the commissioners got it and olmstead and vaux won the plan. The original plan they created was between 59th street and 109th street, between 5th avenue and 8th avenue, which soon would be called central park west. They realized by 1862 that the Northern Edge of the park needed to be stretched a little because the landscape really demanded it. It was a very swampy area until you get to 110th street. They decided to stretch it. They added a few blocks. It actually was meant to give new yorkers crossing 59th street the feeling that they were in the catskills. This was the era of the Hudson River School painters. This is in 1849 painting. Kindred spirits here in the middle of the catskills. You have William Cullen bryant, one of the leading publishers of the day think martin scorsese, because publishers had that kind of power in those days, and he was a tremendous supporter in the 1850s of a park for new york. So he is one of the fathers of central park. And the whole point was, come to the blush, cross 59th street, and this is what you will find. ,hen you go through the ravine it really is like a piece of the adirondacks in new york city. Another piece of this rustic english park is the chinese garden. We were used to gardens in the west that were french. They were very formal like their like versailles, like the luxembourg gardens in paris. In 18th century, a new idea of park design became popular in england. It was meant to be rustic. There were several different sources. I am not saying this is the only one, but one source was the discovery of the chinese garden. By the way, this is Staten Island. You are not in the middle of china. Some people feel going to Staten Island is like going to china, but it is not. You could take the ferry and a short bus ride. This was built by chinese craftsmen about 1015 years ago. It is an extraordinary garden to go through because it really is a miniature version of the rustic world, of the natural world. It is not a formal garden, it is a rustic garden, but everything is very carefully designed, and all architectural elements carefully mesh with the natural science. Architecture is subservient to the environment. It is subservient to the natural surroundings it is part of. Well, they incorporate these ideas, again, the top slide is the original idea in 1857. They tweak it a bit and in 1862 they extend it. This on the bottom is the final plan of 18581859. It varies in different ways from the original and i will be talking about the different ways it varied. One thing is interesting. By the way, they had to design the park around two reservoirs. The original reservoir is now the great lawn. It was billed in the 1930s. The pond is what is left of the reservoir. In the 1860s, they were building a different reservoir. It is now called the onassis reservoir in honor of Jackie Kennedy onassis. By the way, it is not used anymore for water. You are not drinking it, so it doesnt matter. The park was very narrow and had to get around those reservoirs. The southern part of the park of small landscapes that have no relationship to each other. That is why when you walk around central park you are always lost. It is like the village with five different street systems. You know how i know where i am in central park . I look at the buildings on central park west. I look at the skyscrapers. That is how i know. Some of you know the lampposts are coated with the crosstown street that is nearest. It is not worth it. Just look at the skyline and you will know. The northern third of the park, which is about 200 plus acres, is different. It is three major landscapes. It looks forward to Prospect Park a few years later. The three major landscapes, the woods, the northwest woods, the meadows, the east meadows, the north meadows, and water. The pool, the stream and waterfall that runs between the pool and the lake. So, you had water, woods, meadow. Three distinct landscapes, and if you kno