CENTRAL PARK, the most noted park in New York city, extends from 59th street to 110th street between Fifth avenue and Eighth avenue. In 1856, the year of its purchase by the city, the land now constituting Central Park was occupied by shanties, bone-boiling establish ments, piggeries and pools of offensive stagnant water, which rendered the neighborhood any thing but park-like. The first full year's re port of the men who were given the work of turning this ground into a park contains the following description of its condition: `It was already a straggling suburb, when purchased by the city, and a suburb more filthy, squalid and disgusting can hardly be imagined. A considerable number of its inhab itants were engaged in occupations which are nuisances in the eyes of the law and forbidden to be carried on so near the city. They were accordingly. followed at night in wretched hovels half hidden among the rocks. During the autumn of 1857, 300 dwellings were re moved or demolished by the commissionets, to gether with several factories and numerous swill milk and hog-feeding establishments.> Ten thousand loads of stone were also taken off the land and used to build a rough enclosing wall." This description helps one to appreciate the vast amount of work and artistic planning which has been necessary to bring the park to its present state of beauty and attractiveness, and it is interesting to see how fully the prophecy of a park commissioner, who wrote in 1868, has been fulfilled: ((But we who are in the middle of life," he says, "can never know all its beauty. That is reserved for those for whom we have planted these shrubs and trees, and spread these level lawns. These trees will arch over many happy generations,. and thousands who are not yet born will enjoy the sweet green of the grass; and it will ever habitually serve to keep the memory of its founders green.° The central site was finally selected despite its uncompromising topography in preference to the one first proposed at 66th street on the East River — the Jones' Wood site—because it was central and spacious. It was also thought that the great expense of turning it into building lots — the extensive filling of low, swampy ground and blasting away of ledges— would enable the city to purchase the land at a low figure. Including a number of acres of water surface, comprising the two reservoirs belong ing to the water department, the cost was about $7,500 an acre. The total acreage, including the subsequent extension to 110th street, was 843, and the price paid $6,348,959.90.
The special committee appointed by the board of aldermen to select the most desirable park site pronounced emphatically in favor of "the Central Park," stating their opinion that "it could be made to compare favorably with the most celebrated public grounds of the chief cities of Europe, not excepting Hyde Park of London, the Champs Elysees of Paris, the Pra ter of Vienna, the Cascine of Florence, the Corso of Rome, the Prado of Madrid, or even op the American continent, with the spacious plazas of Havana or the lovely botanical gar dens of Rio de Janeiro."
It was freely predicted by the opponents of the park that it would prove a white elephant on the hands of the city; that it could never be made into a decent-looking park and was an unnecessary extravagance which the city did not need and could not afford.
The largest settlement of the park seems to have been along the Eighth avenue side. Mount Saint Vincent was included within the park borders, situated just west of Fifth avenue at 105th street, on the old Boston post road, which ran diagonally through the park The land and buildings forming the State arsenal were subsequently purchased by the city and i added to the park in 1867, the price paid being $275,000.
to the lack of funds no work was done in improving the land until 1857. In April of this year the legislature authorized the issuance of bonds and in the following June a tentative beginning was made on the park. Pre liminary surveys had been carried out by Egbert L. Viele, the first engineer to the commission ers, but they soon decided that it would be desirable to offer a series ofprizes to outside architects for designs for the formal laying out of the land. In 1857 such an announcement was made and on 1 April 1858 30 designs were sub mitted. That of Messrs. Olmsted & Vaux was chosen and they were awarded the first pre mium of $2,000. In 1857 Mr. Olmsted had been appointed superintendent to the board; George E. Waring, agricultural engineer; Samuel I. Gustin, nurseryman, and several other landscape offices had been created and filled. In 1858 Mr. Olmsted was promoted to architect-in-chief at a salary of $2,500 a year and the other offices abolished or subordinated to his. The work of putting the successful design into execution was begun by Mr. Olmsted, Calvert Vaux and J. W. Mould in June 1858. The original plan has been pretty closely adhered to, during the 60 odd years of the park's existence, although there have been times when strong efforts were made to alter it, and even to remodel some of the previous work. In 1871, when the Central Park commissioners were legislated out of office and a board of public parks for the whole city instituted, such an attempt was made, one of its features being an extensive thinning of the trees.