Research Catalog

Title

The park and the people : a history of Central Park / Roy Rosenzweig, Elizabeth Blackmar.

Author

Rosenzweig, Roy.

Publication

Ithaca, N.Y. : Cornell University Press, 1992.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Additional Authors

Blackmar, Elizabeth, 1950-

Description

xi, 623 pages : illustrations; 25 cm

Summary

• In this superb and handsomely illustrated book - the first full-scale history of the park ever published - Roy Rosenzweig and Elizabeth Blackmar tell the dramatic story of the creation of Central Park, of the people who built it and have used it. The book chronicles the launching of the park project, the disputes surrounding its design and management, the job of constructing it, and the various ways it has served generations of New Yorkers. Throughout, the authors.
• Delineate the politicians, business people, artists, immigrant laborers, and city dwellers who are the key players in the tale. In tracing the park's history, the writers also give us the history of New York. They explain how squabbles over politics, taxes, and real estate development shaped the park and describe the acrimonious debates over what a public park should look like, what facilities it should offer, and how it should accommodate the often incompatible.
• Expectations of different groups of parkgoers. The authors have uncovered surprising information about the immigrants and African Americans who were displaced from the park site, and they offer a critical reassessment of the famous collaboration of the park's designers, Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux. In rich detail, they describe working-class New Yorkers fighting for Sunday park concerts and against the practice of renting park seats for a nickel. They look.
• Back at the origins of the zoo and museums at the park's borders. They follow the battle between the twentieth-century reformers who wanted to introduce playgrounds and ball fields and the preservationists trying to protect the original Olmsted and Vaux design, and they explain the dramatic changes brought about by the social impulses of the New Deal and by Robert Moses. Rounding out the story, the authors take in the park's recent history: rising fears of crime in the.
• 1950s, the "be-ins" and anti-war demonstrations of the 1960s, the devastating fiscal crisis of the 1970s, and the restoration of the park in the 1980s by the Central Park Conservancy. But the authors' aim is much wider: they also show that conflicting visions of how a park should be managed and used raise larger issues about the meaning of the "public" in a democratic society. Who is the public? How can people take part in making decisions about public institutions? How.
• Do we create public space where people of diverse social and cultural backgrounds will feel welcome? These are questions that communities across the nation will continue to debate. Parkgoers and city dwellers everywhere will be enthusiastic readers of The Park and the People, as will those interested in urban, architectural, social, and cultural history, urban planning, and landscape architecture.

Subjects

• New York (State) > New York
• Central Park (New York, N.Y.) > History
• History
• New York (State) > New York > Central Park
• New York (N.Y.) > History

Genre/Form

History.

Note

• Includes section on Seneca Village.

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (pages 537-610) and index.

Contents

I. Creating Central Park. 1. The Gentleman from Europe and the Idea of a Great Park. 2. "Give Us a Park ... Central or Sidelong ... A Real Park, A Large Park" 3. Private to Public Property -- II. Designing and Building Central Park. 4. The Design Competition. 5. The Greensward Plan and Its Creators. 6. Building for "the Public and Posterity" 7. Andrew Green and the Model Park -- III. The Elite Park. 8. "The Great Rendezvous of the Polite World" 9. "A Park Properly So-Called" -- IV. Redefining Central Park. 10. The "Spoils of the Park" 11. Reshaping Park Politics. 12. The "Many Sided, Fluent, Thoroughly American" Park. 13. A Public Menagerie and Two Private Museums -- V. The Nineteenth-Century Park in the Twentieth-Century City. 14. The Fragmented Park. 15. Will They Ever Drain the Reservoir? Modernizing the Park. 16. Robert Moses and a New Deal -- VI. The Past Fifty Years. 17. Scenes from a Park, 1941-1980. 18. "Whose Park Is It Anyway?"

Call Number

F128.65.C3

ISBN

• 0801425166
• 9780801425165
• 0801497515
• 9780801497513

LCCN

92007062

OCLC

25367745

Author

Rosenzweig, Roy.

Title

The park and the people : a history of Central Park / Roy Rosenzweig, Elizabeth Blackmar.

Imprint

Ithaca, N.Y. : Cornell University Press, 1992.

Type of Content

text

Type of Medium

unmediated

Type of Carrier

volume

Bibliography

Includes bibliographical references (pages 537-610) and index.

Connect to:

Table of contents

Added Author

Blackmar, Elizabeth, 1950-

Research Call Number

*R-USLHG F128.65.C3 R67 1992

Sc E 98-291