The Park and the People: A History of Central Park

by Rosenzweig, Roy

• ISBN13: 9780801497513
• ISBN10: 0801497515
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1998-10-01
• Publisher: Cornell Univ Pr

Summary

This "exemplary social history" (Kirkus Reviews) is the first full-scale account of Central Park ever published. Elizabeth Blackmar and Roy Rosenzweig tell the story of Central Park's people -- the merchants and landowners who launched the project; the immigrant and African-American residents who were displaced by the park; the politicians, gentlemen, and artists who disputed its design and operation the German gardeners, Irish laborers, and Yankee engineers who built it: and the generations of New Yorkers for whom Central Park was their only backyard. In tracing the park's history, Blackmar and Rosenzweig give us the history of New York, and bring to life larger issues about the meaning of the word "public" in democratic society.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	ix
Introduction	1	(14)
I CREATING CENTRAL PARK	15	(80)
1. The Gentleman from Europe and the Idea of a Great Park	15	(22)
2. "Give Us a Park...Central or Sidelong...A Real Park, A Large Park"	37	(22)
3. Private to Public Property	59	(36)
II DESIGNING AND BUILDING CENTRAL PARK	95	(116)
4. The Design Competition	95	(26)
5. The Greensward Plan and Its Creators	121	(29)
6. Building for "the Public and Posterity"	150	(30)
7. Andrew Green and the Model Park	180	(31)
III THE ELITE PARK	211	(52)
8. "The Great Rendezvous of the Polite World"	211	(27)
9. "A Park Properly So-Called"	238	(25)
IV REDEFINING CENTRAL PARK	263	(110)
10. The "Spoils of the Park"	263	(21)
11. Reshaping Park Politics	284	(23)
12. The "Many Sided, Fluent, Thoroughly American" Park	307	(33)
13. A Public Menagerie and Two Private Museums	340	(33)
V THE NINETEENTH-CENTURY PARK IN THE TWENTIETH-CENTURY CITY	373	(96)
14. The Fragmented Park	373	(39)
15. Will They Ever Drain the Reservoir? Modernizing the Park	412	(27)
16. Robert Moses and a New Deal	439	(30)
VI THE PAST FIFTY YEARS	469	(62)
17. Scenes from a Park, 1941-1980	469	(36)
18. "Whose Park Is It Anyway?"	505	(26)
Note on Citations	531	(2)
Abbreviations Used in Notes	533	(4)
Notes	537	(74)
Illustration Credits	611	(2)
Index	613