There cannot be many people in the western world who have not heard of Central Park. Central Park is a public park in the centre of Manhattan in New York City. In 1853 the legislature in New York earmarked 700 acres of land for the creation of a park where people could escape from the noise and excesses of the city. It was a big undertaking because the cost of the land alone was five million dollars.
In 1857 the city held a design contest to see who came up with the best design for the park and the winning design was known as the Greenwood Plan. Clearing the area for the park took more gunpowder than was used at the Battle of Gettysburg during the American Civil War. Most of the work and construction of the park was completed by 1873; it held various trees, plants and shrubs as they were laid out in the Greenwood Plan.
Since 1963 Central Park has been an historic landmark, and every year it receives around 25 million visitors. Situated in Manhattan the park is bordered by West 59th Street at the south, Eighth Avenue at the west side, and by 110th Street on the North and Fifth Avenue on the East. Central Park is managed by a small non-profit organisation and does so under the terms of its contract with the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation. Since 2007 more than £450 million has been invested in the management and restoration of the park.
Central Park is almost entirely landscaped, even though it may look as though the shrubs and foliage grow there naturally. The park also has a number of artificially created lakes and ponds that also look natural to the naked eye. The park has been designed to coincide with the varied interests of the populace and includes walking and riding paths as well as two ice skating rinks, one of which doubles as a swimming pool during the summer months.
Central Park has an open air theatre and plenty of indoor attractions, including the Swedish Cottage Marionette Theatre and Belvedere castle and nature centre. There is a central park zoo and a conservatory garden and wild life sanctuary, and all these amenities are smack in the middle of New York, one of the world’s busiest cities. Traffic crosses the park but is banned after seven in the evening when the joggers, cyclists and skate boarders take over. Central Park is almost a city within a city and it has its own New York City police precinct that investigates any crimes in the park.
Along with its landscaping, Central Park also has glaciated rock out cropping that attracts rock climbers. The park has a carousel that is one of the largest merry go rounds in the whole of the United States. The open air theatre presents free performances during the summer and well known stars often take part in these. Since the nineteen sixties there has been pressure to prevent car driving in the park and although this has not happened, the number of car free hours each day has increased.