Central Park | Description, History, Attractions, & Facts
Central Park, largest and most important public park in Manhattan, New York City. It occupies an area of 840 acres (340 hectares) and extends between 59th and 110th streets (about 2.5 miles [4 km]) and between Fifth and Eighth avenues (about 0.5 miles [0.8 km]). It was one of the first American parks to be developed using landscape architecture techniques. In the 1840s the increasing urbanization of Manhattan prompted the poet-editor William Cullen Bryant and the landscape architect Andrew Jackson Downing to call for a new, large park to be built on the island. Their views gained widespread s...