About Central Park, Frederick Law Olmsted, its co-creator with Calvert Vaux, said it best: "The Park throughout is a single work of art.” Yet the park’s 843 acres of completely manmade terrain have constantly fended off manhandling propositions throughout its century-and-a-half-long history.
When New York City’s Department of Parks and Recreation recently announced plans to cup a 35-foot-tall bubble over 26 clay tennis courts in Central Park, the proposal prompted the preservation group Landmark West to launch a petition drive over the internet.
Proposal and Opposition
Objection to proposed encroachment to Central Park is as old as the park itself, and the present quarrel also rehearses familiar questions about what the historic landmark’s creators, Olmsted and Vaux, intended for their “specimen of God’s handiwork.” The 1858 Greensward Plan—the park’s essential blueprint and report—is a fairly expedient reference for determining original intent; what others have proposed, and often imposed; and what the public has ended up with today.
The Parks Department proposed to erect three "bubbles" over the 26 Har-Tru public courts between 94th and 95th streets. The ostensible objective was to weatherproof the clay courts from Nov. 15th to March 24th for the next 15 years. But the implicit profile is that of a cash cow.
Landmark West and signers of its petition cite numerous concerns. Namely, the 35-foot height of the inflated bubble, would constitute one of the park’s largest “non-historic” structures. A potentially prohibitive winter fee for use of the courts would create an “elitist” facility that undermines the park’s “democratic character.” The city would siphon revenue into its general fund, not channel it to the park directly. And the fuel- and noise emissions of the diesel generators that inflate the bubble have pollutant implications to the environment, particularly to the birds.
Proposals Gobble Central Park
By 1918, proposals to “improve” the park were so numerous that the New York Times rounded them up into a hilarious, or frightening, feature. On March 31st the Times article began:
If the various persons who have sought to invade Central Park in the last sixty years, for projects in themselves often worthy, oftener grotesque, and frequently purely commercial, had had their way, there would now be nothing left of the park except a few walks and drives, and a lake on which steamboats and full-rigged ships would be plying.
Proposed improvements included a street railway, a speedway (which was actually legislated in 1892, but soon overturned), Grant’s Tomb, and a proposal to straighten park walks and re-configure it into a checkerboard pattern. The Metropolitan Museum of Art was the only institution that had succeeded in encroaching Central Park.
In 1924, the Manhattanville Association led other neighborhood groups in thwarting the Board of Estimate’s plan to snatch six acres of park land for a $15,000,000 music and art center, or for any other encumbrances within the park.
And in 1960, A&P heir Huntington Hartford put up ¾ million dollars to plant a 10,000-square-foot “Hartford Café” within the park. Plans for what the Times described as Hartford’s “kind of Europeanization of Central Park” got the all-American heave-ho.
Robert Moses and the “Battle of Central Park”
In 1934, Robert Moses became the city’s first borough-wide commissioner, overseeing park administration for 26 years until 1960. Moses’ view that nature in Central Park was less important than “order, efficiency and economy” would transform the park’s shape.
But near the end of his era, Moses reputation soured unpalatably in the heat of the so-called “Battle of Central Park.” When, in 1956, mothers with toddlers in tow faced down workmen’s attempts to raze their play area for the expansion of Tavern on the Green’s parking lot at 67th Street, the Commissioner countered the “noisy minority.” In the hush of night, Moses fenced off the area and bulldozed the trees. The bad move fueled bad press: it was just not cricket. The mothers were ultimately victorious, and got a new playground to show for it.
“Grand Design or Catch-All?”
In 1967, the Greensward Foundation examined the changes made to Central Park since 1900, as compared to its original 1858 design. A map prepared by Richard Edes Harrison and park curator Henry Hope Reed reflected dwindling park acreage by the years 1900, 1933 and 1966 from various added structures, pathways and enclosures. The map also showed a marked shrinkage in park green spaces.
In the end, the merits of Olmsted and Vaux’s Central Park, “framed upon a single, noble motive”—to which the subtlety of its design is integral—may outshine this latest bubble proposal. Or, enough bubbles may be added to the plot so as to elevate the park into something never imagined—an island escaping up and away over the horizon.
Sources:
- New York Times, “If ‘Improvement’ Plans Had Gobbled Up Central Park”, March 31, 1918; “Denounce Park Grab With Patriotic Song”, March 18, 1924; “Central Park Mothers Vanquish Bulldozer”, April 15, 1956.
- Ccntral Park: Grand Design or Catch-All? Greensward Foundation map prepared by Richard Edes Harrison and Henry Hope Reed.
- The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York, Robert A. Caro, 1974.
- The Park and the People, Roy Rosenzweig and Elizabeth Blackmar, 1992.
Eric K. Washington - Eric K. Washington is the author of Manhattanville: Old Heart of West Harlem and contributed to the recent MTA-licensed guide book, New ...
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