A Comprehensive History of the Nation's First Urban Park

by Sara Cedar Miller

 

Every New York City tour bus stops at Strawberry Fields, countless movies have been filmed at Bethesda Terrace, and concerts from the Great Lawn are broadcast throughout the nation. These places are all part of Central Park, America's first public park and a paragon of 19th-century landscape design. This first definitive history of the park celebrates the splendor and significance of a national treasure. Sara Cedar Miller, the official historian and photographer for the Central Park Conservancy, draws on extensive research to tell the story of the park's creation, placing it in the context of 19th-century American art and social history, and illuminating the roles of its designers Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux.

 

Fascinating period views and original plans and drawings, many previously unpublished, are complemented by Miller's breathtaking new photographs, which reveal the restored park in all its glory. This celebration of Central Park's 150th birthday is also a celebration of that visionary combination of nature, cities, and democracy that shaped the creation of so many subsequent public landscapes, like our own New York Botanical Garden.