Central Park : an American masterpiece / text and photographs by Sara Cedar Miller.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Miller, Sara Cedar.

Contributor:

Central Park Conservancy (New York, N.Y.)

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Central Park (New York, N.Y.)--History.

Central Park (New York, N.Y.).

Central Park (New York, N.Y.)--Pictorial works.

New York (N.Y.)--Description and travel.

New York (N.Y.).

National Book Committee.

Genre:

Illustrated works.

Physical Description:

255 pages : illustrations (some color), color map ; 27 cm

Place of Publication:

New York : H.N. Abrams : In association with the Central Park Conservancy, 2003.

Summary:

Central Park, America's first public park, is a paragon of nineteenth-century landscape design and one of the world's great urban spaces. Marking the park's 150th anniversary, Central Park, An American Masterpiece is a definitive illustrated history that celebrates the splendor and significance of this national treasure. The park has just undergone a nearly three-hundred-million-dollar restoration that took more than two decades, and it has never looked more beautiful. Author Sara Cedar Miller, the official historian and photographer for the Central Park Conservancy, draws on extensive research to tell the captivating story of the park's creation and provides surprising and fresh insights into its design. Fascinating period views and original plans and drawings -- many previously unpublished, including two competition entries thought to be lost -- are complemented by Miller's breathtaking photographs, which reveal the rejuvenated park in all its glory. Placing Central Park in the context of nineteenth-century American art and social history, Miller's lively text illuminates the roles of its stellar designers Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux, explores how the original plan was modified in the course of construction, and traces the evolution of the park over the decades. She also gives long overdue credit to the designers' associate Jacob Wrey Mould, whose extraordinary sculptural program for Bethesda Terrace is an artistic achievement of the highest order.

Readers are led from the gates at Grand Army Plaza, along the Mall and its formal allee of elms, to the heart of the park, Bethesda Terrace and Fountain, whose iconography is explored in detail. The tour continues through each of the park's distinctive landscapes -- among them the pastoral Sheep Meadow, North Meadow, and Harlem Meer; the picturesque Ramble and Ravine -- which are prime exemplars of aesthetic trends in nineteenth-century landscape design. These landscapes appear to be totally natural but were, in fact, entirely man-made through the arduous process of blasting stone outcrops, carting in millions of cubic yards of soil, and planting vast areas of trees, shrubs, and flowers for special effects of texture and color. Readers also visit the park's architectural highlights such as Belvedere Castle and the Dairy, stopping along the way to admire its fanciful bridges -- no two alike -- its outstanding assortment of rustic shelters and furniture, its enchanting gardens such as Conservatory Garden and Shakespeare Garden, and its superb and varied public sculptures. Offering the rich experience of an in-depth tour of the park, this book will delight New Yorkers and visitors alike.

Contents:

Chapter 1 An Under- and Overview 14

Chapter 2 The Heart of the Park 36

Chapter 3 Kindred Spirits 70

Chapter 4 The Landscapes 98

Chapter 5 The Architecture 156

Chapter 6 The Sculpture 188

Epilogue: The Birth of the Park Movement and City Planning in America / Elizabeth Barlow Rogers 236

Central Park Conservancy / Regina Peruggi 249.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (page 248) and index.

ISBN:

0810939460

OCLC:

50773395