How Central Park Was Created Entirely By Design and Not By Nature | Architectural Digest

Central Park is the most famous city park in the world but did you know of its 843 Acres every single tree shrub and flower rep placed by Design and not by Nature I'm Michael Whitner I've been an architect in New York City for over 35 years and today I'm going to show you some of the Hidden details that make Central Park the greatest Metropolitan Park in the world in the 1840s the concept for a large-scale park in Manhattan was proposed by Poet William Cullen Bryant and one of the fathers of American landscape architecture Andrew Jackson

Downing their dream would come to life in the 1850s when the city of New York held a design competition for the Central Park on the island of Manhattan over 30 entries were submitted and the ultimate winner was the park as we know it today designed by landscape architect Frederick Law Olstead and architect Calbert Vox behind me is the dairy this may not be one of the most famous buildings in the park but it has a tangible connection to one of the initial requirements of the design competition and is part of what made Vox and olmstead's

design so ingenious and distinct from the other submissions this building is in the center of the children's District which was incorporated into the design after the competition in order to accommodate younger visitors to the park the dairy was a place for children to have access to fresh milk which at the time in the late 1800s was not something everybody had and you can see it has a bit of a Brothers Grim fairy tale feeling to it but there's another part of this building that you can't see that extends down two stories to the ground just

on the other side of that fence where it meets one of the transverse roads that allow traffic to cut through the park a transverse road is basically just a road that allows traffic to cross through the park which is important because the park covers 51 City blocks north to south the original design competition required a minimum of four transverse roads across the park everybody else essentially left them on the surface which cut the park into basically five equal pieces vo and olmstead's design was the only one that designed them in such a way that the

traffic would be on a lower level than the rest of the park essentially submerging them so that the immersion in nature of Park guests would not be [Music] disturbed this piece of iron sticking out of this Boulder is not an oversight in fact it's a survey bolt that marks the original Street grid of Manhattan the original commissioner plan of 1811 never included designs for a large Park in the middle of the city but the streets that were once here were removed and the land was incorporated into the park and it was really quite a transformation

at the time this park was conceived the entire city wasn't as densely populated as it is today but there were still settlements in the area that would become the park including including senica Village one of the earliest free black settlements in New York everyone living on what would become Parkland was relocated by eminent domain the controversial government mechanism for seizing property where owners are compensated but must vacate and senica Village tragically was included in that but it wasn't just relocating homes that took place Vox and olmstead's design called for a radical departure in the thinking

of what a grand Civic Garden should be they rejected the idea of Highly formal rigid Gardens like those designed exclusively for the wealthy instead they proposed a naturalistic setting filled with Meadows Woodlands gurgling streams and surprising Vistas the resulting work involved shifting over 5 million cubic yards of soil planting over 500,000 trees and shrubs and Excavating more than seven lakes and other bodies of water all done by hand in fact the boulders like this one which the bolt is sticking out of are the only original pieces of natural landscape in the park and even many

of these were Unearthed scraped and cleaned to appear as they do today this is the last remaining survey Bol in Central Park and I don't want to spoil the fun of finding it for you so I'll let you search the 843 acres for [Music] it Central Park is a big place and it's easy to get turned around but if you do here's a tip there are more than 1,800 Lamp Post in the park that tell you where you are if you know where to look at the base of the lamp poost you can find a

set of numbers that indicate where you are in the park but it's a bit of a secret code the first two numbers represent the nearest Cross Street between 59th Street and 110th and the last two numbers tell you which side of the park you're on even numbers mean East and odd numbers mean [Music] West over my shoulder you could see the Bethesda Terrace at the center of which is the beautiful Bethesda Fountain a grand Fountain was also one of the original requirements for the design competition and this one satisfies that requirement and commemorates the importance

of water in New York City titled Angel of the waters this sculpture was created by sculptor Emma steans who is the first woman to receive a commission for a major public work in New York City the statue commemorates the completion of the croen aqueduct in 1842 which brought fresh water to New York City which was actually a really big deal because before that chalera and yellow fever were a big issue because of unclean water and in fact Bethesda Terrace takes its name from The Gospel of St John which refers to the Healing Waters of Bethesda

in Jerusalem although now it is filled with sculptures depicting historical figures such as William Shakespeare Robert Burns and Sir Walter Scott Angel of the waters was the only sculpture that was created as part of the original design of the park and even though this statue was created by a woman all of the statues depicting real people in the park were only of men until the statue of Sojourner Truth Susan B Anthony and Elizabeth Katy Stanton was created in 2020 these later statues line possibly the most recognizable part of the park known as the mall which

has been featured in countless films and TV shows this is one of the most formal design elements of the park a grand prominade that leads directly to Bethesda Terrace which the designers called The Heart of the park the city was reluctant to build The Terrace at first due to costs but Vox convinced them by saying nature first second and third architecture after a while and basically what that means is nature has been the priority but at some point we need some architecture and this became the place for it the design of the arcade is like

the Nave of a church but submerged it has this incredible ceiling with over 15,000 tiles made in England by the Minton tile company who famously made tiles for many Cathedral floors in Europe This arcade is actually the only place in the world where these tiles are used for ceiling although it is highly ornate and ingeniously designed it also remains true to the naturalistic vision of the Park's overall design with carvings depicting natural scenes as well as symbols of the Four Seasons the act of walking down these steps through the arcade and out to the Terrace

is one of the great architectural experiences in New York City you walk down the stately Mall step down into this dimly lit underground space basically you're just walking under a roadway and suddenly you're in this church-like almost Sacred Space the rows of stone arches the imported English tile ceiling the intricate Trump Loy panels it all creates an atmosphere of reverence and then when you emerge it opens onto this Grand Terrace with the Statue of an Angel set against the backdrop of the lake and the forest in the distance over my shoulder is what's known simply

as the lake it's actually only 4 ft deep but it covers 22 Aces so in addition to the lake there's six other man-made bodies of water in the park including the Harlem Mir the lock the reservoir the pond and others and they were all intended to have a calming effect echoing the serenity of natural bodies of water in the natural landscape but of course none of this is naturally occurring it was all designed and constructed even the beautiful waterfalls that you see in Central Park are fed by tap water you can actually drink them the

idea to create naturalistic Vistas throughout the park was partly inspired by the paintings of the Hudson River School these paintings were enormous in scale and depicted all inspiring natural scenes some of them are hanging in the Metropolitan Museum of Art which of course is situated inside the park in fact the original met building was designed by Calbert Vox along with Jacob Ray mold the other notable feature about this lake is the bridge that crosses it the Bow Bridge it was originally designed as a suspension bridge like the Brooklyn Bridge but they decided to go with

an arched Bridge because they were concerned that the towers would distract from the naturalistic setting the whole bridge is cast iron with a span of 87 ft it's actually the second oldest cast iron bridge in the United States there's over 36 bridges in the park known as arches most of them are both Bridges and tunnels which is a very New York thing each one is unique and ornate and has its own personality and character but even more importantly there are also very clearly visible examples of the way the park is organized for visitors to navigate

it there's actually four vertical layers to the park the transverse roads which are submerged below grade and three other circulation paths the drives which were intended for horses and carriages the bridal paths for horseback riding and the foot paths for pedestrian traffic these archers these Bridges and tunnels intertwine vertically so that these different circulation paths can cross each other without creating traffic at the intersections the drives pass over the bridal and foot paths allowing uninterrupted use of each different circulation path it's also a really clever way to separate these different types of Transit while maintaining

a seemingly pastoral landscape and so it actually accommodates a lot of traffic without it feeling like there's a lot of traffic Vox and Olstead intended the park to be enjoyed by all the people of the city working class and wealthy but at the time and un forunate byproduct of these vertically layered circulation paths was that they also separated the classes from one another because people of lesser means couldn't afford horses let alone carriages thankfully that is no longer the case and the paths are used interchangeably by everybody from all walks of life so behind me

you can see badier Castle beler basically just means beautiful view in Italian it's built on Vista Rock one of the highest points in Central Park it was intended as a place to get broad sweeping views of the park and the surrounding cityscape there are many places in the park where you can lose sight of the buildings that surround you and feel removed from the city but climbing the Tower of pader Castle brings modern Manhattan back into view and reminds you that this natural landscape sits within a great Metropolitan City the other function of this High

vantage point is that beler castle serves as a weather station so every time you hear you know the amount of rainfall or snowfall in Central Park they are referring to that spot right behind me the castle is made out of Manhattan schist which is the same Stone found throughout the park like the boulder that the survey bolt is driven into and it appears to actually grow out of that rock and become a building what's really interesting about this building is that it's built a 3/4 scale which makes it appear further away than it actually is

and gives it this sort of magical fairy tale quality originally it was designed to be two castles but the budget was cut and Jacob Ray mold designed that wooden Pavilion ion in Li of the second castle some of the other things you can see from the castle is the Great Lawn the delart theater where they perform Shakespeare in the park and turtle pond which actually is home to Turtles the Great Lawn was actually a reservoir when the park was first built but in 1931 they filled it in with rubble from the excavation for the foundations

of Rockefeller Center and the 8th Avenue subway and now this beautiful green expans is the site of many famous concerts and home to a number of sports fields and other community activities you can also see the ramble from the Tower of badier Castle the ramble is one of the parts of the park that feels the most like it's always been here like it's completely natural and not man-made and that you could get lost on a walk in the woods and it's the perfect manifestation of the idea that a soothing walk in nature could happen right

in the middle of New York City there's so many amazing things in Central Park that we just didn't have time to cover if you'd like to see a part two on Central Park let us know in the comments below