Deteriorating urban conditions due to rapid urbanization coupled with extremely high rates of population growth were driving forces into the creation of New York city’s public park.  Beginning in the 1840’s, congestion, pollution and social unrest  increased significantly and public space was demanded as a means to improve the city. Prominent early advocates for a park included William Cullen Bryant, editor of the New York Evening Post, and Andrew Jackson Downing, writer and landscape architect who advised that a park or giant garden for the city would foster civic pride, promote a higher standard of living, and act as a “symbol of political and aesthetic advancement” (Gandy, 80-82). 

Several arguments and intentions existed for the Central Park. “From the onset, the ‘public’ arguments for a park emphasized a search for order, a harmonious balance between nature and culture rooted in organic analogies of a healthy city as a means to facilitate greater economic prosperity and ensure social harmony. In reality however, it was sophisticated and farsighted economic calculations on the part of powerful merchants, land speculators, and property owners that carried the day” (111). Another notable social elite, Frederick Olmsted, central park’s chosen designer, envisioned his own use and presentation of the park. Consequently, “the relationship between park design and the recreational needs of a wider public than that envisaged in Olmsted’s original plan was to provide a pivotal element in political disagreements surrounding the control of central park. Olmsted’s refusal to include sports facilities in the park design left him vulnerable to allegations of disdain for the popular culture of industrial America. “ (111)

The park’s existence was not appreciated by all, nor was its design, location or purpose. The incidental patch of natural habitat known as Central Park could not even reverse the ecological damage inflicted by urbanization. However, it was evident that it softened the detrimental impact of urbanization to the environment. Despite the political and social disagreements about the park, it stands to this day at center of the city, as a piece of nature that “may remind the urban dweller of the larger biosphere to which the city belongs” (Platt, 38).

The Conservatory garden, located in central park, was created in 1898. It featured an indoor winter garden of exotic tropical plants and outdoor Victorian flowerbed. By 1937 however, this deteriorating structure was renovated and the 6 acre formal garden was put into place instead. The garden, designed by by Gilmore D. Clarke, “is composed of six acres of beautiful seasonal plants that are arranged into three styles: English, French, and Italian” (Wheeler). The French northern side of the garden contains the Untermyer fountain, which is surrounded by German artist Walter Schott’s Three Dancing Maidens sculpture. The center of the garden is the Italian section, featuring a wisteria pergola, a large lawn surrounded by clipped hedges of yews, a 12-foot-high fountain, and two exquisite pink and white crabapple trees.  On the walkway under the wisteria pergola are medallions inscribed with the names of the original thirteen states. (www.centralparknyc.org) The most prominent aspect of the English southern part of the garden is the sculpture of English author Frances Hodgson Burnett.

                                           Works Cited

Gandy, Matthew. Concrete and Clay: Reworking Nature in New York City. MIt Presss  MIT press. 2003.

Platt, H. Rutherford. The Ecological City. The University of Massachusetts Press.