Central Park - NYC

New York Central Park is perhaps the most famous park in the world, if certainly the world's most photographed park, featured in thousands of motion pictures and television shows, but this most beloved of New York landmarks almost didn't happen. In the original city plan adopted in the early 19th century, the area where the park is today was mapped with streets and avenues.

The streets and avenues that were originally part of the grid plan were never actually constructed because Central Park was not part of the original plan of 1811. It only came in the mid 19th century.

By the mid 1800s, half a million people were living on Manhattan. Recognizing a need for some open space in the rapidly growing city, citizens groups persuaded the local government to set aside an area in the middle of the island for a park. But despite its appearance today, the site chosen was not pristine wilderness. Nearly every inch was designed and built from below the ground up.

Central Park was in an area that was not as buildable, if you will. It was rugged. It had a lot of roughness to it as far as the vegetation. There was a big swamp in it but we also have to remember that at the time, Central Park wasn't empty. There were actually people living there. There was a little Seneca Village there so it was controversial, even at a time just simply dedicating the land and then removing these people that were living there just for the pleasure of being able to walk in the outdoors.

The only natural elements that couldn't be moved were the rock outcrops so the landscape was designed around the natural outcroppings that can still be found throughout the park today. Construction, which began in 1857, spanned more than 16 years. Thousands of laborers, mostly Irish and German immigrants, were hired to transform the landscape. Working largely by hand, they brought in more than 500,000 cubic feet of topsoil from New Jersey and removed more than 10 million cart loads of rocks and debris from the park. Today, Central Park is one of the world's urban wonders, an oasis of greenery in the steel and concrete New York cityscape. The 843-acre park contains 24,000 trees, 36 bridges and arches, 8 manmade ponds and streams, and 9000 benches. Each year, around 25 million people visit the park to jog or bike along its six-mile drive, play sports, hike its twisting paths, or just relax.

Well, in some sense, without Central Park, New York City would be a concrete jungle with parking lot upon parking lot of cross streets and building so Central Park really provides some release to the urban life of the city.