A brilliant concept and one of
the true marvels of New York City,Central Park is visited by over 25 million people each
year. The area, now known as Central Park, was
once Seneca Village where a community of free blacks and slaves
lived in shacks and caves
and which later became a shantytown for 5,000 squatters
mostly Irish and German. (That area was on the West Side of Manhattan between 82nd & 89th Streets and Seventh & Eighth Avenues.) Central Park was conceived as a "park for all the people," and planned and designed by Frederick Law Olmsted (who researched
slavery and had strong views about its morality and economic efficiency) and CalvertVaux.Central
Park’s creation took 16 years and it covers 843 acres and
stretches 51-city-blocks beginning at 59th
Street (between Fifth Avenue and Columbus Circle) and ending at 110th Street.The Park has approximately 26,000 trees
(including 1700 American Elms), 36 bridges and arches, 21 playgrounds, a lake
and boathouse, a skating rink, a carousal, a castle, a large reservoir, a
Conservatory and Strawberry Fields (a garden tribute to John Lennon who lived
near Central Park at the Dakota apartment building, where he was murdered in
1980), several other gardens, a lavishly expensive and ornate restaurant
--Tavern on the Green, a zoo that houses a gay male Penguin couple, and statues
of Alice in Wonderland, Hans Christian Anderson, Mother Goose, Beethoven,
William Shakespeare, Simon Bolivar and many others.
Central Park is also part of the amazing story of
the history of black Americans in New
York City.Seneca Village
existed from 1825 through 1857. On
September 27, 1825, Andrew Williams purchased three lots of land from John and Elizabeth
Whitehead for $125.00. Native American,
Irish and German immigrants also became a part of this community which
consisted of three churches, a school and cemeteries. Seneca Village was destroyed to create Central Park.
Central Park’s locates have best been captured cinematically in the film version of the Broadway musical, Hair (1979), in which a group of 60’s hippies roam and dance around
the park (choreography by Twyla Tharpe).This film about the Sixties in America was directed by a Czech film director, Milos
Forman.
A Central Park's Bow bridge is surrounded by The Gates (bottom), saffron colored fabric
panels, which were completed as a “temporary work of art” on February 12, 2005 by Christo and Jeanne-Claude.There were 7,503 gates which were 16 feet
tall and 5 feet, 6 inches to 18 feet in width and covered 23 miles of Central Park walkways.Merchandising rights from the event were
donated to NNYN (Nurture New York’s
Nature) and The Central Park Conservancy.One of the joys of experiencing The Gates was the crowd of happy faces
it attracted to Central Park.
Raccoons -- especially in recent years -- have become a part of the animal population in the park. They live in the hollow branches of trees.
