Central Park is a public park at the
center of Manhattan in New York City. The park initially opened in
1857, on 843 acres (341 ha) of city-owned land. In 1858, Frederick Law
Olmsted and Calvert Vaux won a design competition to improve and expand the
park with a plan they entitled the Greensward Plan. Construction began
the same year, continued during the American Civil War, and was completed in
1873. Central Park is the most visited urban park in the United States.
Designated a National Historic Landmark in 1962,
the park is currently managed by the Central Park Conservancy under contract
with the city government. The Conservancy is a non-profit organization that
contributes 83.5% of Central Park's 37.5
million annual budget, and employs 80.7% of the park's maintenance staff.
Central Park today
Central Park,
which has been a National Historic Landmark since 1962, was designed by
landscape designer and writer Frederick Law Olmsted and the English architect Calvert
Vaux in 1858 after winning a design competition. They also designed Brooklyn's Prospect Park.
Central Park is
bordered on the north by West 110th Street, on the south by West 59th Street,
on the west by Eighth Avenue.
Along the park's borders, these streets are known as Central Park North, Central
Park South, and Central Park West respectively. Only Fifth Avenue along the park's eastern
border retains its name.
Visitors
The park, which receives approximately
thirty-five million visitors annually, is the most visited urban
park in the United States.
It was opened on 770 acres (3.1 km2) of city-owned land and was
expanded to 843 acres (3.41 km2; 1.317 sq mi). It is
2.5 miles (4 km) long between 59th
Street (Central Park South) and 110th Street (Central Park North), and is
0.5 miles (0.8 km) wide between Fifth
Avenue and Central Park West. Its size and
cultural position, similar to Munich's Englischer
Garten and London's Hyde Park, has served as a
model for many urban parks, including San Francisco's
Golden Gate Park,
Tokyo's Ueno
Park, and Vancouver's
Stanley Park.
Maintenance
The park is maintained by the Central Park
Conservancy, a private, not-for-profit organization that manages the park under
a contract with the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation, in which
the president of the Conservancy is ex officio Administrator of Central
Park.
Today, the conservancy employs four out of five
maintenance and operations staff in the park. It effectively oversees the work
of both the private and public employees under the authority of the Central Park administrator (publicly appointed), who
reports to the parks commissioner, conservancy's president. As of 2007, the
conservancy had invested approximately $450 million in the restoration and
management of the park; the organization presently contributes approximately
85% of Central Park’s annual operating budget
of over $37 million.
The system was functioning so well that in 2006
the conservancy created the Historic Harlem Parks initiative, providing
horticultural and maintenance support and mentoring in Morningside
Park, St. Nicholas Park, Jackie
Robinson Park, and Marcus
Garvey Park.
Landscaping and facilities
While planting and land form in much of the park
appear natural, it is in fact almost entirely landscaped. The park contains
several natural-looking lakes and ponds that have been created artificially,
extensive walking tracks, bridle paths, two ice-skating rinks (one of which is
a swimming pool in July and August), the Central Park Zoo, the Central Park
Conservatory Garden, a wildlife sanctuary, a large area of natural woods, a
106-acre (43 ha) billion-gallon reservoir with an encircling running
track, and an outdoor amphitheater, the Decorticate Theater, which hosts the
"Shakespeare in the Park" summer festivals. Indoor attractions
include Belvedere
Castle with its nature
center, the Swedish Cottage Marionette Theatre, and the historic Carousel. In
addition there are seven major lawns, the "meadows", and many minor
grassy areas; some of them are used for informal or team sports and some set
aside as quiet areas; there are a number of enclosed playgrounds for children.
The six miles (10 km) of drives within the
park are used by joggers, bicyclists, skateboarders, and inline skaters,
especially when automobile traffic is prohibited, on weekends and in the evenings
after 7:00 pm.
The real estate value of Central
Park was estimated by the property appraisal firm, Miller Samuel,
to be $528,783,552,000 in December 2005.
Crime
As crime has declined in the park and in the rest
of New York City,
many former negative perceptions have waned. The park has its own New York City
Police Department precinct (the Central Park Precinct), which employs both
regular police and auxiliary officers. In 2005, safety measures held the number
of crimes in the park to fewer than one hundred per year (down from
approximately 1,000 in the early 1980s). The New York City Parks Enforcement
Patrol also patrols Central Park.
History
1857–1900
Central Park was not a part of the Commissioners'
Plan of 1811; however, between 1821 and 1855, New York City nearly quadrupled in
population. As the city expanded, people were drawn to the few existing open
spaces, mainly cemeteries, to get away from the noise and chaotic life in the
city.
New York City's need for a great public park was
voiced by the poet and editor of the Evening Post (now the New York
Post), William Cullen Bryant, and by the first American landscape
architect, Andrew Jackson Downing, who began to publicize the city's need for a
public park in 1844. A stylish place for open-air driving, similar to the Bois
de Boulogne in Paris or London's Hyde Park, was felt to be needed by many
influential New Yorkers, and, after an abortive attempt in 1850-51 to designate
Jones's Wood, in 1853 the New York legislature settled upon a 700-acre
(280 ha) area from 59th to 106th Streets for the creation of the park, at
a cost of more than US$5 million for the land alone.
The state appointed a Central Park Commission to
oversee the development of the park, and in 1857 the commission held a
landscape design contest. Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux developed what
came to be known as the Greensward Plan, which was selected as the
winning design.
According to Olmsted, the park was "of
great importance as the first real Park made in this country—a democratic
development of the highest significance…," a view probably inspired by
his stay and various trips in Europe during
1850. He visited several parks during these trips and was particularly
impressed by Birkenhead Park and Derby Arboretum in England. Several
influences came together in the design. Landscaped cemeteries, such as Mount Auburn
(Cambridge, Massachusetts)
and Green-Wood (Brooklyn, New York) had set examples of idyllic,
naturalistic landscapes. The most influential innovations in the Central Park design were the "separate
circulation" systems for pedestrians, horseback riders, and pleasure
vehicles. The "crosstown" commercial traffic was entirely concealed
in sunken roadways, (today called "transverses"), screened with
densely planted shrub belts so as to maintain a rustic ambiance.
The Greensward plan called for some 36 bridges,
all designed by Vaux, ranging from rugged spans of Manhattan schist or granite,
to lacy neo-gothic cast iron; no two are alike. The ensemble of the formal line
of the Mall's doubled allées of elms culminating at Bethesda Terrace, whose
centerpiece is the Bethesda Fountain, with a composed view beyond of lake and
woodland, was at the heart of the larger design.
Execution of the Greensward Plan was the
responsibility of a number of individuals, including Jacob Wrey Mould
(architect), Ignaz Anton Pilat (master gardener), George Waring (engineer), and
Andrew Haswell Green (politician), in addition to Olmsted and Vaux.
Before the construction of the park could start,
the area had to be cleared of its inhabitants, most of whom were quite poor and
either free African Americans or residents of English or Irish origin. Most of
them lived in small villages, such as Seneca
Village, Harsenville, or the Piggery
District; or in the school and convent at Mount St. Vincent's
Academy. Around 1,600 residents occupying the area at the time, were evicted
under the rule of eminent domain during 1857. Seneca Village
and parts of the other communities were razed to make room for the park.
During the construction of the park, Olmsted
fought constant battles with the park commissioners, many of whom were
appointees of the city's Democratic machine. In 1860, he was forced out for the
first of many times as Central Park's superintendent, and Andrew Haswell Green,
the former president of New York City's
board of education took over as the chairman of the commission. Despite the
fact that he had relatively little experience, he still managed to accelerate
the construction, as well as to finalize the negotiations for the purchase of
an additional 65 acres (260,000 m2) at the north end of the
park, between 106th and 110th Streets, which would be used as the
"rugged" part of the park, its swampy northeast corner dredged, and
reconstructed as the Harlem Meer.
Between 1860 and 1873, most of the major hurdles
to construction were overcome, and the park was substantially completed.
Construction combined the modern with the ageless: up-to-date steam-powered
equipment and custom-designed wheeled tree moving machines augmented massive
numbers of unskilled laborers wielding shovels. The work was extensively
documented with technical drawings and photographs. During this period, more
than 18,500 cubic yards (14,000 m³) of topsoil had been transported in from New Jersey, because the
original soil was not fertile or substantial enough to sustain the various
trees, shrubs, and plants called for by the Greensward Plan. When the park was
officially completed in 1873, more than ten million cartloads of material had
been transported out of the park, including soil and rocks. More than four
million trees, shrubs and plants representing approximately 1,500 species were
transplanted to the park.
More gunpowder was used to clear the area than
was used at the battle of Gettysburg
during the American Civil War.
Sheep grazed on the Sheep Meadow from the 1860s
until 1934, when they were moved upstate as it was feared they would be used
for food by impoverished Depression-era New Yorkers.
1900–1960
Following completion, the park quickly slipped
into decline. One of the main reasons for this was the lack of interest of the
Tammany Hall political machine, which was the largest political force in New York at the time.
Around the turn of the 20th century, the park faced several new challenges. Cars
were becoming commonplace, bringing with them their burden of pollution, and
people's attitudes were beginning to change. No longer were parks to be used
only for walks and picnics in an idyllic environment, but now also for sports,
and similar recreation. Following the dissolution of the Central Park
Commission in 1870 and Andrew Green's departure from the project, and the death
of Vaux in 1895, the maintenance effort gradually declined, and there were few,
if any, attempts to replace dead trees, bushes and plants, or worn-out lawn.
For several decades, authorities did little or nothing to prevent vandalism and
the littering of the park.
All of this changed in 1934, when Republican Fiorello
La Guardia was elected mayor of New
York City and unified the five park-related
departments then in existence. Robert Moses was given the task of cleaning up
the park. Moses, about to become one of the mightiest men in New York City, took over what was
essentially, a relic, a leftover from a bygone era.
According to historian Robert Caro in his 1974
book The Power Broker:
Lawns,
unseeded, were expanses of bare earth, decorated with scraggly patches of grass
and weeds, that became dust holes in dry weather and mud holes in wet…. The
once beautiful Mall looked like a scene of a wild party the morning after.
Benches lay on their backs, their legs jabbing at the sky...
In a single year, Moses managed to clean up
Central Park and other parks in New
York City. Lawns and flowers were replanted, dead
trees and bushes were replaced, walls were sandblasted, and bridges repaired.
Another dramatic change was Moses's removal of the "Hoover Valley"
shantytown, whose site was transformed into the 30 acres (12 ha) Great
Lawn. Major redesigning and construction also was carried out: for instance,
the Croton Lower Reservoir was filled in so the Great Lawn could be created.
The Greensward Plan's purpose of creating an idyllic landscape was combined
with Moses' vision of a park to be used for recreational purposes—19
playgrounds, 12 ball fields, and handball courts were constructed. Moses also
managed to secure funds from the New Deal program, as well as donations from
the public.
1960–1980
The 1960s marked the beginning of an “Events
Era” in Central Park that reflected the
widespread cultural and political trends of the period. The Public Theater's
annual Shakespeare in the Park festival was settled in the Decorticate Theater
(1961), and summer performances were instituted on the Sheep Meadow, and then
on the Great Lawn by the New York Philharmonic Orchestra and the Metropolitan
Opera. During the late 1960s the park became the venue for rallies and cultural
events such as the "Love-Ins" and "Be-Ins" of the period.
Increasingly through the 1970s, the park became a venue for events of
unprecedented scale, including rallies, demonstrations, festivals and concerts.
In the summer of 1966, two-term mayor of New York
(1966–73) John V. Lindsay, himself an avid cyclist, initiated a weekend ban on
automobiles in Central Park for the enjoyment of cyclists and public alike – a
policy that has stuck to this day.
Despite the increasing numbers of visitors to the
park, Robert Moses' departure in 1960 had nevertheless marked the beginning of
a twenty-year period of decline in its management. The city itself was also
experiencing economic and social changes, with some residents fleeing the city
and moving to the suburbs in the wake of increased crime. The Parks Department,
suffering from budget cuts and a lack of skilled management that rendered its
workforce virtually ineffective, responded by opening the park to any and all
activities that would bring people into it—regardless of their impact and
without adequate management, oversight, or maintenance follow-up. Some of these
events nevertheless became milestones in the social history of the park, and in
the cultural history of the city.
By the mid-1970s, however, the park's severe
managerial neglect was exacerbating the consequences of the city's broader
problems. "Years of poor management and inadequate maintenance had turned
a masterpiece of landscape architecture into a virtual dust bowl by day and a
danger zone by night," said the conservancy president. Time had hastened
the deterioration of its infrastructure and architecture, and ushered in an era
of vandalism, territorial use (as when a pick-up game of softball or soccer
commandeered open space to the exclusion of others), and illicit activities.
Several volunteer citizen groups had emerged,
intent upon reclaiming the park by fund raising and organizing volunteer
initiatives. One of these groups, the Central Park Community Fund, commissioned
a study of the park’s management. The study's conclusion was bi-linear;
·
It called for the establishment of a single
position within the parks department, responsible for overseeing both the
planning and management of Central Park and
·
for a board of guardians to provide citizen
oversight.
In 1979 Parks Commissioner Gordon Davis
established the Office of Central Park Administrator, appointing to the
position the executive director of another citizen organization, the Central
Park Task Force. The Central Park Conservancy was founded the following year,
to support the office and initiatives of the administrator and to provide
consistent leadership through a self-perpetuating, citizen-based board that
also would include as ex-officio trustees, the parks commissioner, Central Park
Administrator, and mayoral appointees.
1980–present
Under the leadership of the Central Park
Conservancy, the park's reclamation began with modest, but highly significant
first steps, addressing needs that could not be met within the existing
structure and resources of the parks department. Interns were hired, and a
small restoration staff to reconstruct and repair unique rustic features,
undertaking horticultural projects, and removing graffiti under the broken
windows premise. Currently, "Graffiti doesn't last 24 hours in the
park," according to Conservancy president Douglas Blonsky.
By the early 1980s the Conservancy was engaged in
design efforts and long-term restoration planning, using both its own staff and
external consultants. It provided the impetus and leadership for several early
restoration projects funded by the city, preparing a comprehensive plan for
rebuilding the park. On completion of the planning stage in 1985, the
conservancy launched its first "capital" campaign, assuming
increasing responsibility for funding the park's restoration, and full
responsibility for designing, bidding, and supervising all capital projects in
the park.
The restoration was accompanied by a crucial
restructuring of management, whereby the park was subdivided into zones, to
each of which a supervisor was designated, responsible for maintaining restored
areas. Citywide budget cuts in the early 1990s, however, resulted in attrition
of the park's routine maintenance staff, and the conservancy began hiring staff
to replace these workers. Management of the restored landscapes by the
conservancy’s "zone gardeners" proved so successful that core
maintenance and operations staff were reorganized in 1996. The zone-based
system of management was implemented throughout the park, which was divided
into forty-nine zones. Consequently, every zone of the park has a specific
individual accountable for its day-to-day maintenance. Zone gardeners supervise
volunteers assigned to them, (who commit to a consistent work schedule) and are
supported by specialized crews in areas of maintenance requiring specific
expertise or equipment, or more effectively conducted on a park-wide basis.
On October 23, 2012, hedge fund manager John A.
Paulson announced a $100 million gift to the Central Park Conservancy, the
largest ever monetary donation to New
York City’s park system.
Activities
- Birding: A wooded section of the park called "The Ramble" is popular among birders. Many species of woodland birds, especially warblers, may be seen in The Ramble in Spring and Fall.
- Boating: Rowboats and kayaks are rented on an hourly basis at the Loeb Boathouse, which also houses a restaurant overlooking the Lake. As early as 1922, model power boating was popular on park waters.
- Carriage horses: the carriage horse industry, revived in New York City in 1935,
has been featured in various films; the first
female carriage driver, Maggie Cogan, appeared in a newsreel in 1967. The
ethics of this tradition and the effects on horse health and well being have
been questioned by various animal rights activists.
- Pedicabs: Pedicabs operate mostly in the southern part of the park, the same part as horse carriages.
- Sports: Park Drive, just over 6 miles (9.7 km) long, is a haven for runners, joggers, bicyclists, and inline skaters. Most weekends, races take place in the park, many of which are organized by the New York Road Runners. The New York City Marathon finishes in Central Park outside Tavern on the Green. Many other professional races are run in the park, including the recent, (2008), USA Men's 8k Championships. Baseball fields are numerous, and there are also courts for volleyball, tennis, croquet and lawn bowling.
- Rock Climbing: Central Park's glaciated rock outcroppings attract climbers, especially boulderers; Manhattan's bedrock, a glaciated schist, protrudes from the ground frequently and considerably in some parts of Central Park. The two most renowned spots for boulderers are Rat Rock and Cat Rock; others include Dog Rock, Duck Rock, Rock N' Roll Rock, and Beaver Rock, near the south end of the park.
- Ice Skating: Central Park has two ice skating rinks, Wollman Rink and Lasker Rink, which converts to an outdoor swimming pool in summer.
- Central Park Carousel: the current carousel, installed in 1951, is one of the largest merry-go-rounds in the United States. The fifty-eight hand-carved horses and two chariots were made by Solomon Stein and Harry Goldstein in 1908. The carousel originally was installed in Coney Island in Brooklyn.
- Playgrounds: Central Park has twenty-one playgrounds for children located throughout the park, the largest, at 3 acres (12,000 m2), is Heckscher Playground named for August Heckscher.
- Swedish Cottage Marionette Theatre: located in the Swedish Cottage. The building was originally a model schoolhouse built in Sweden. Made of native pine and cedar, it was disassembled and rebuilt in the U.S. as Sweden's exhibit for the 1876 Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. Frederick Law Olmsted moved the cottage to its present site in 1877.
- Central Park Zoo: The Central Park Zoo is one of four zoos, and one aquarium, managed by the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), and is accredited by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA). The zoo is home to an indoor rainforest, a leafcutter ant colony, a chilled penguin house, and a Polar Bear pool.
- Entertainment
- Each summer, the Public Theater presents free open-air theatre productions, often starring well-known stage and screen actors. The Delacorte Theater is the summer performing venue of the New York Shakespeare Festival. Most, although not all, of the plays presented are by William Shakespeare, and the performances are generally regarded as being of high quality since its founding by Joseph Papp in 1962.
- The New York Philharmonic gives an open-air concert every summer on the Great Lawn. From 1967 the Metropolitan Opera presented two operas in concert each year; this series was discontinued in 2007. Many concerts have been given in the park including Barbra Streisand, 1967; The Supremes, 1970; Carole King, 1973; Bob Marley & The Wailers, 1975; America, 1979; Elton John, 1980; the Simon and Garfunkel reunion, 1981; Diana Ross, 1983; Paul Simon, 1991; Garth Brooks, 1997; the Dave Matthews Band, 2003; Bon Jovi, 2008;
and Andrea Bocelli, 2011. Since 1992, local singer-songwriter
David Ippolito has performed almost every summer weekend to large crowds of
passers-by and regulars and has become a New York
icon, often simply referred to as "That guitar man from Central
Park." In the summer of 1985, Bruce Springsteen planned to
hold a free outdoor concert on the Great Lawn; however, the idea was scrapped
when it was purported that any free show held by Springsteen would bring an
estimated 1.3 million people, crippling the park and the nearby neighborhoods.
·
- Each summer, City Parks Foundation offers Central Park Summerstage, a series of free performances including music, dance, spoken word, and film presentations. SummerStage celebrated its twenty-fifth anniversary in 2010. Throughout its history Summerstage has welcomed emerging artists and world renowned artists, including Celia Cruz, David Byrne, Curtis Mayfield, Ladysmith Black Mambazo, George Clinton and the P-Funk All Stars, and Nobel Laureate and Pulitzer winner Toni Morrison, Femi Kuti, Seun Kuti, Pulitzer winner Junot Diaz, Vampire Weekend, Dayton Contemporary Dance Company, Morphoses/The Wheeldon Company, and many more.
- With the revival of the city and the park in the new century, Central Park has given birth to arts groups dedicated to performing in the park, notably Central Park Brass, which performs an annual concert series and the New York Classical Theatre, which produces an annual series of plays.
Central Park was
home to the famed New York City restaurant Tavern on the Green which was located
on the park's grounds at Central Park West and West 67th Street. Tavern on the Green had
its last seating on December 31, 2009 before closing its doors.
Central Park was
home to the largest concert ever on record. Country Superstar Garth Brooks
performed a free concert in August 1997. About 980,000 attended the event,
according to the FDNY.
Art
- Sculpture: A total of twenty-nine sculptures by sculptors such as Augustus Saint-Gaudens, John Quincy Adams Ward, and Emma Stebbins, have been erected over the years, most have been donated by individuals or organizations. Much of the first statuary placed was of authors and poets, in an area now known as Literary Walk. Some of the sculptures are:
- "Angel of the Waters" at Bethesda Terrace by Emma Stebbins (1873), was the first large public sculpture commission for an American woman
- Balto: a 1925 statue of the sled dog who became famous during the 1925 serum run to Nome
- King Jagiello bronze monument on the east end of Turtle Pond
- Alice in Wonderland
- Duke Ellington: created by sculptor Robert Graham was dedicated in 1997 near Fifth Avenue and 110th Street, in the Duke Ellington Circle
- Cleopatra's Needle; is a red granite obelisk. The "Cleopatra's Needle" in Central Park is one of three; there also is one in Paris and one in London, which is one of a pair with the New York obelisk. Each obelisk is approximately 68–69 feet tall and weigh about 180 tons. They originally were erected at the Temple of Ra, in Heliopolis, in Ancient Egypt around 1450 B.C. by pharaoh Thutmose III. The hieroglyphs were inscribed about two hundred years later by pharaoh Rameses II to glorify his military victories. The obelisks were all moved during the reign of Roman emperor Augustus Caesar when Ancient Egypt was under the control of Rome. They were brought to Alexandria and erected as tribute to Julius Caesar, in front of the Caesarium, a temple originally built by Cleopatra VII of Egypt in honor of Mark Antony, thus the name "Cleopatra's Needle.
There are two versions of how the Central Park
Cleopatra's Needle made its way to Central Park: either it was a gift from the
Khedive of Egypt, Isma'il Pasha, or it was stolen through the machinations of William
H. Vanderbilt who paid the tab to have the obelisk shipped to New York and erected. The obelisk arrived in
New York in
July 1880; it took thirty-two horses hitched in sixteen pairs to pull the
obelisk to the park. It was erected in an official ceremony on January 22,
1881.
- Strawberry Fields: On October 9, 1985, on what would have been John Lennon's 45th birthday, New York City dedicated 2.5 acres to his memory. Countries from all around the world contributed trees, and Italy donated the iconic Imagine mosiac. It has since become the sight of impromptu memorial gatherings for other notables and, in the days following the September 11, 2001 attacks, candlelight vigils
- The Gates: For sixteen days in 2005 (February 12–27), Central Park was the setting for Christo and Jeanne-Claude's installation The Gates. Although the project was the subject of very mixed reactions (and it took many years for Christo and Jeanne-Claude to get the necessary approvals), it was nevertheless a major, if temporary, draw for the park.
Geology
There are four different types of bedrock in
Manhattan, two are exposed in various outcroppings in Central Park, Manhattan
schist and Hartland schist (both are metamorphosed sedimentary rock); Fordham gneiss,
an older deeper layer which does not surface in the park and Inwood marble
(metamorphosed limestone) which overlays the gneiss are the others.
Fordham gneiss, which consists of metamorphosed igneous
rocks, was formed a billion years ago, during what is known as the Grenville
orogeny that occurred during the creation of an ancient super-continent. It is
the oldest rock in the Canadian Shield, the
most ancient part of the North American tectonic plate.
Manhattan schist
and Hartland schist were formed in the Iapetus Ocean
during the Taconic orogeny in the Paleozoic era, about 450 million years ago.
During this period the tectonic plates began to move toward each other, which
resulted in the creation of the supercontinent, Pangaea.
Cameron's Line is a fault zone that traverses Central Park on an east-west axis.
Various glaciers have covered the area of Central
Park in the past, with the most recent being the Wisconsin
glacier which receded about 12,000 years ago. Evidence of past glaciers are
visible throughout the park in the form of glacial erratics (large
boulders dropped by the receding glacier) and north-south glacial striations
visible on stone outcroppings.
Flora
Central Park, home to over 25,000 trees, has a
stand of 1,700 American Elms, one of the largest remaining stands of in the northeastern
U.S.,
protected by their isolation from Dutch Elm Disease which devastated the tree
throughout its native range. A partial listing of the tree species found in Central Park, both natives and exotics:
- Acer campestre- Hedge maple
- Acer ginnala- Amur maple
- Acer palmatum- Japanese maple
- Acer platanoides- Norway maple
- Acer pseudoplatanus- Sycamore maple
- Acer saccharinum- Silver maple
- Acer saccharum- Sugar maple
- Aesculus glabra- American buckeye
- Aesculus hippocastanum- Common horsechestnut
- Aesculus pavia- Red buckeye
- Aesculus x carnea- Red horschestnut
- Ailanthus altissima- Tree of heaven
- Aralia spinosa- Devil's walkingstick
- Betula alleghaniensis- Yellow birch
- Betula lenta- Black birch
- Betula nigra- River birch
- Betula papyrifera- Paper birch
- Celtis occidentalis- Hackberry
- Cedrus atlantica glauca- Blue Atlas Cedar
- Cornus florida- Flowering Dogwood
- Ginko biloba- Ginko
- Gleditsia triacanthos- Honey Locust
- Carpinus betulus- European Hornbeam
- Liquidambar styraciflua- Sweetgum
- Liriodendron tulipifera- Tulip Tree
- Magnolia grandiflora- Southern Magnolia
- Pinus strobus- Eastern White Pine
- Platanus occidentalis- American Sycamore
- Quercus alba- White Oak
- Quercus palustris- Pin oak
- Quercus rubra- Red Oak
- Robinia pseudoacacia- Black Locust
- Taxodium distichum- Bald Cypress
- Tilia Americana- Basswood or American Linden
- Tilia cordata- Little-leaf Linden
- Tsuga Canadensis- Canadian hemlock
- Ulmus Americana- American Elm
Fauna
- Birds:
The first
official list of birds observed in Central Park
was drawn up by Augustus G. Paine, Jr.. Paine was an avid hobby ornithologist
and, together with his friend Lewis B. Woodruff, drew up a list of birds
counting 235 species. This was regarded as the first official list and was
published in Forest and Stream on June 10, 1886.
An article in The New Yorker on August 26,
1974 calls attention to this early list Over the decades the list has been updated
and changed.
The park is
frequented by various migratory species of birds during their Spring and Fall
migration on the Atlantic Flyway. Over a quarter of all the bird species found
in the United States have
been seen in Central Park. One of these
species is the Red-tailed hawk, which re-established a presence in the park
when a male hawk known as Pale Male for his light coloration, nested on a
building on Fifth Avenue, across the street from the park. He became a local
media celebrity and a prolific breeder.
Central Park was
the site of the misguided unleashing of European starlings in North America, a
native of Eurasia which has become an invasive
species. In April, 1890, eighty birds were released by Eugene Schieffelin, and
the following March another eighty; these one hundred and sixty birds are the progenitors
of the flocks which now span the United States
and parts of Canada.
- Mammals
- Raccoon (Procyon lotor): nocturnal tree dwellers that come down to ground level to feed at night, have become extremely common in Central Park in recent years, prompting the Parks Department to post rabies warnings around certain areas.
- Eastern gray squirrel, or grey squirrel (Sciurus carolinensis), is a tree squirrel in the genus Sciurus native to the eastern and midwestern United States.
- Eastern Chipmunk (Tamias striatus): although not commonly sighted, there are chipmunks in Central Park.
- Virginia Opossum (Didelphis virginiana): a nocturnal marsupial that rests in trees during the day and searches for food on the ground at night.
- Arthropods: In 2002 a new genus and species of centipede (Nannarrup hoffmani) was discovered in Central Park. At about four-tenths of an inch (10 mm) long, it is one of the smallest centipedes in the world.
Miscellaneous
Permission to hold issue-centered rallies in Central Park has been met with increasingly stiff
resistance from the city. In 2004, the organization United for Peace and
Justice wanted to hold a rally on the Great Lawn during the Republican National
Convention. The city denied application for a permit, stating that such a mass
gathering would be harmful to the grass and that such damage would make it
harder to collect private donations to maintain the park. Courts upheld the
refusal.
Since the 1960s, there has been a grassroots
campaign to restore the park's loop drives to their original car-free state.
Over the years, the number of car-free hours has increased, although a full
closure currently is resisted by Mayor Bloomberg. The New York City Department
of Transportation is now reportedly studying the issue.
The Central Park Medical Unit is an all-volunteer
ambulance service that provides free emergency medical service to patrons of Central Park and the surrounding streets. It operates a
rapid-response bicycle patrol, particularly during major events such as the New
York City Marathon, the 1998 Goodwill Games, and concerts in the park.
Central Park constitutes its own United States census
tract, number 143. According to Census 2000, the park's population is eighteen
people, twelve male and six female, with a median age of 38.5 years, and a
household size of 2.33, over 3 households.
Central Park is
the most filmed location in the world. Over 305 films have been shot within the
park. Memorable films include Hannah and Her Sisters, When Harry Met Sally, Remember
Me, Home Alone 2, Kramer vs Kramer, Enchanted, Mr. Deeds, Die Hard With a
Vengeance, and Serendipity.