December 21st, 2024
A Beginner’s Education in the History, Natural History, and Landscape Design History of Central Park: Part Five
Lately, I have found myself caught up in memories of my days as an adopted New Yorker learning my way around in the world of philanthropic activism oriented toward planning and cultural institutions. I was twenty-eight years old in 1964, when, together with my former husband Ed Barlow and our six-year old daughter Lisa, I adopted New York City with sufficient ardor to know that, happy as I had been growing up in San Antonio, Texas, I was henceforth going to consider myself committed to calling the “Big Apple” home for the rest of my life. Another certainty was the fact that I was in no way going to become a social climber as a means of cementing this long-term affiliation. At the same time, with my recently awarded master’s degree from Yale’s School of City Planning, I felt committed to becoming professionally employed in a way that would allow me to exercise my penchant for fostering nature-based public space development and preservation. Fortunately, with a husband employed in a distinguished Wall Street law firm during the first three years of our residency in New York and later as a successful investor in the then-nascent industry of cable broadcasting, I was able to create a satisfying career of self-employment by affiliating myself with a not-for-profit civic organization called The Park Association, with offices in the National Arts Club located in the historic Samuel J. Tilden Mansion at 15 Gramercy Park South.
By happenstance, because of my connection with the Parks Association, I became good friends with at least a few born-and-bred New Yorkers, including Adele Lawrence Auchincloss, wife of the novelist and trusts-and-estates attorney Louis Stanton Auchincloss, both of whom are deceased now, as is also the case with Whitney North “Mike” Seymour, another scion of an Old-New-York-family, who acted as a mentor to me as I learned to speak in public advocating more funding in the city’s capital and expense budgets for the care of New York City’s vast realm of parks, playgrounds, and other recreational facilities and wrote letters to the New York Times deploring encroachments on park lands such as the one proposed by Huntington Hartford, heir of the A&P fortune, to build a large sidewalk café inside the main entrance to Central Park at 59th Street and Fifth Avenue.
An avid gardener and member of the board of the New York Botanical Garden, Adele served as deputy commissioner of the New York City Parks Department during the mayoralty of Abraham Beame in the mid-1970s, during which time she was the overseer of the Central Park Task Force, the seed from which I was able to grow the Central Park Conservancy following her resignation in 1974 when she turned the reins of the Task Force over to me. This occurred with the proviso that I take charge of fulfilling the terms of a grant from Iphigene Ochs Sulzberger, matriarch of the New York Times, by assuming the role of director of the Task Force’s summer intern program consisting of the recruitment, training, and work management of a selection of high school students hired to perform basic maintenance tasks in Central Park, including the removal of the viny weeds enshrouding the rhododendron shrubs in the stretch of the East Drive embankment next to the east side of the Reservoir and the layers of silt that had accumulated in the park’s two streambeds: The Gill traversing the Ramble before emptying into the western arm of the Lake and the Loch (formerly Montayne’s Rivulet) running from a waterfall next to the West Drive and flowing through one, and then another of the Park’s most impressive stone arches: Glen Span between the forested flanks of the Ravine and Huddlestone at its eastern entrance on the western shore of the Harlem Meer.
Adele’s placing of the reins of the Task Force in my hands included a mandate to oversee the expenditures of a grant she had obtained from the Aster Foundation supporting the architectural restoration of the Belvedere Castle, while proceeding to solicit funds for the restoration of Bow Bridge from Lila Acheson Wallace, co-founder of the Reader’s Digest with her husband DeWitt Wallace, and a series of annual gifts from Lucy Goldschmidt Moses for sound routine arboricultural care and the laboratorial testing for elm-bark-beetle infection necessary to thwart the advance of the devastating blight then afflicting the elm trees on the Mall.
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My reason for indulging myself in the above autobiographical snippet in which I find myself as a new New Yorker rubbing elbows with the born and bred descendants of Old-time New Yorkers is to bring up the topic of Central Park’s design, construction, deterioration, and restoration as a magnet for citizen participation from the time of its advocacy by poet and editor William Cullen Bryant in 1844 and further journalistic political advocacy by Andrew Jackson Downing in the 1850s followed by its creation and subsequent vigilance to keep the park free from encroachments broached by proponents of organized forms of recreation such as carriage racing the park’s early years.
I was therefore gratified to find in my perusal of the pile of “vintage” (pre-third millennial) Central Park books I have been “reviewing” in this current series of journal postings on the books that provided my earliest education in the park’s creation and incorporation into the realm of unadorned primordial Nature as well as the that of the New York City Commissioners Grid Plan of 1811, to discover a book copyrighted and published in 1926 by The Central Park Association, which attributes its authorship in the following way: “This book was written, compiled, edited, and published by The Central Park Association,” the mission statement of which reads:
The Association was organized to stimulate and aid the City of New York to restore Central Park to life and vigor, and then keep it as a public trust, for the benefit of those living and those to come. It is to be so restored and maintained, that there be a proper understanding of its plan and purpose, of its character, of its design.
I later learned from my online research that in 1926 the Central Park Association had taken a giant step toward this end by commissioning the Olmsted Brothers Firm to report on the rehabilitation needs of Central Park and play an instrumental role in securing a $1 million appropriation for the park’s rehabilitation, which is explained in the following manner:
The Association has pride in announcing that Messrs. Olmsted Bros. of Brookline, Mass., a firm of landscape architects, successors of one of the designers of Central Park, the late Frederick Law Olmsted, have accepted the Association’s invitation to be its consultants in matters affecting Central Park, in which the Association may take interest, and to make a survey and report as to what should be done to rejuvenate and maintain that Park in a way that is entirely consistent with its original character and design.
One main object of the Association, therefore, is to prove that the Park is primarily a landscape park, having a design peculiar unto itself and worthy of protection from misuse and neglect.
Reading these words made me seek comparison with my own at the beginning of Rebuilding Central Park: A Management and Restoration Plan (MIT Press, 1987):
The basic armature of the Park has proven to be amazingly durable, physically as well as aesthetically, even when it is only now beginning to emerge from three quarters of a century of abuse and neglect. It is a tribute to the soundness of the original concept that, although it has lost almost all of its original botanical material and is still defaced with the scar tissue of this neglect, it has never lost its sheer scenographic splendor. This splendor is a triumphant example of the nineteenth-century “naturalistic” landscape, which is, in fact, an almost wholly man-made artifact, as carefully shaped, cut, and polished as the geometric parterres of Versailles.
Turning back to The Central Park, the reader will surmise that The Park Association’s anonymous author was probably a committee of like-minded members of the board, since throughout the text we find the grammatical usage of the first-person plural, as in the following sentence:
Our greatest authority on Central Park are the writings of Olmsted and Vaux. These and the opinions of the early Park Board are our Bible, our constitution. Mr. Olmsted has taught us how to look upon such a great park in the midst of a great city. He said:
Parks of all things, should not be taken hold of as frontier expedients. Make-shift, temporizing, catch-penny work upon them is always extravagant work. The men hitherto directly in trust of our parks have not been specially prone to the trading view of them. They have been high-minded servants of the public; but they have been constrained to waste much of what their free judgment would secure, and there is but one way in which the difficulty can be got over. It is by bringing public opinion itself to take a large interest in the lasting conditions of accruing value in the park.
The park should, as far as possible, complement the town. Openness is the one thing you cannot get in buildings. Picturesqueness you can get. Let your buildings be as picturesque as your artists can make them. This is the beauty of a town. Consequently, the beauty of the park should be the other. It should be the beauty of the fields, the meadow, the prairie, of the green pastures, and the still waters.
Following another Olmsted quotation, “Where building begins, the Park ends,” is a quotation by England’s eighteenth-century doyen of landscape design and whose books on Picturesque landscape design Olmsted had avidly read as a young man:
The perfection of landscape gardening consists in The four following requisites: First, it must display The Natural Beauties, and hide the natural defects of every situation. Secondly, it should give the appearance of extent and freedom, by carefully disguising or hiding the boundary. Thirdly, it must studiously conceal every interference of art, however expensive, by which the scenery is improved’ making the whole appear the production of Nature only; and fourthly, all objects of mere convenience or comfort, if incapable of being made ornamental, or of becoming parts of the general scenery, must be removed or concealed.
The final introductory quotation prefacing the text of The Central Park is a quotation of a sentiment expressed by a thirteen-and-a-half-year-old P.S. 159 student named Gertrude Siegel:
People who delight in placing monuments where trees should be panted. It is cruel! They might just as well put the bisque dolls in their homes to take the place of merry children.
The principal text of the book is devoted to the “The Historic Gates,” which is devoted to individual descriptions of each of the Park’s eighteen entrances by title, which solves the riddle for the current-day park visitor who ponders why all of the these entrances are called “gates” but have no open-close latch attached to metal fence-like panels that can be shut like doors but are simply openings in the wall where the visitor transitions from city sidewalk to park path. All of these have designated names representing some and social or economic segment of humanity. According to the author of the preliminary chapter, “The quotations under each of the gates were taken from the interesting and far-seeing report of a Committee of the Commissioners of Central Park in 1862, composed of Andrew H. Greene, G. H. Russell, and Henry G. Stebbins, who named the eighteen entrances to the park in this way with a view to including all of the various groups of the population who shared in and contributed to the general welfare of the community. According to the authors of The Central Park:
Our reading of this eloquent report, written by “the Fathers of the Greater City,” is an inspiration to us to-day, who are the beneficiaries of their wisdom, foresight, and passion for public service, and should impel us as citizens to defend and carry on their ideals and their work. As individuals we can only raise a voice. As members of one of the Gate Committees in common cause through The Central Park Association, we can accomplish much for this and succeeding generations. Let us link the future to the past, rendering at the same time honor to our fathers and service to our children, by joining together to bring this worthy purpose to a successful consummation.
A celebration of the naming of the gates occurred at the first annual dinner of The Central Park Association in the Grand Ballroom of the Hotel Astor on May 13, 1926. Leafing through the following pages The Central Park, we find the names of each of the chairmen of the eighteen committees that selected the names according to according to the various economic and social sectors of New York City’s growing population. I will give as a primary example the Merchants’ Gate at 59th Street and 8th Avenue (Central Park West) whose naming committee chairman, Franklin Simon, presided over a committee consisting of vice-chairmen, each of which represented a division of New York’s mercantile economy. These included Hotel Supplies, Glassware, Real Estate, Grocers, Dry Goods, Typewriter Dealers, Chemicals, Hair Goods, Accountants, Specialty Shops, Retail Jewelers, Silk. According to the author The Central Park, “The good office of Merchant is performed by the merchant under many different names, such as ‘Banker,’ ‘Broker,’ ‘Importer,’ ‘Trader,’ ‘Agent,’ ‘Director,’ ‘Store Keeper.’ The prosperity of every community must necessarily depend to a great extent on the successful development of the general idea that is embodied in the various terms, and as the City of New York is the commercial center of the whole country, it is especially desirable that it should find an adequate recognition in connection with the Park.
The job of the naming committee for Central Park’s principal entrance at Fifty-ninth Street and Fifth Avenue is thus explained:
There seems to be yet one other class of laborers who cannot be correctly distinguished either by the term ‘Artisan,’ ‘Artist,’ or ‘Merchant,’ and this is the class that includes the Poet, the Statesman, the Lawyer, the Author, the Editor, the Teacher, the Physician, the man of Science, and all in fact, whose contributions to the welfare of the community are of a specially intellectual character.
The word ‘Scholar,’ perhaps expresses the generic idea with sufficient completeness, and if we add this term to the three already mentioned, we have a group of four names bearing a mutual relation one to the other, and embodying in a general way, and on an equal footing, so far as the Park is concerned, all the industrial ideas that are entertained in a civilized community.
The Strangers’ Gate located at Eighth Avenue (Central Park West) and One-Hundred Tenth Street has an interesting rationale for its naming:
The City, although metropolitan by position, is cosmopolitan in its associations and sympathies, and is ever ready to extend a courteous welcome to all peaceably disposed ‘Strangers” or ‘Foreigners,’ who may be led by inclination or business to pass their time within its boundaries; this welcome being offered, not merely as a matter of courtesy, but as a recognition of the fact, that it is highly important, both to the general and the particular interests of the whole nation, that its cities should be visited, and institutions studied and comprehended by intelligent and industrious travelers from other countries, for by such means only can unworthy prejudices be removed, and incorrect estimates rectified.
Today’s reader will naturally wonder about the lack of female first names among the designated businesses and professions mentioned above. But take notice of the short write-up about the gate at Eight Avenue (Central Park West) and 72nd Street, today’s entry into the section of the park dubbed Strawberry Fields in honor of the Beatles band leader and song composer John Lennon. Here the naming committee chaired by Mrs. Daniel Guggenheim had as its vice chairmen Edna Ferber, Mabel Parsons, Dorothy Straus, Elizabeth Marbury, and Annie Mathews, and the rationale for conferring the name Women’s Gate upon this entrance is as follows:
In the Woman’s Gate, it is not intended to convey the idea that the various industrial pursuits recognized at the other entrances to the Park, are followed by one sex only, for the names of women who have distinguished themselves in the various arts and sciences of life, will readily suggest themselves to the mind of every one, but it is desired to express in an especial manner, a sense of the all-important services that are rendered by women in their domestic capacity alone, and to recognize the fact that maids, wives, and mothers, they are justly entitled to a hearty recognition as valuable contributors to the happiness and prosperity of the whole community.
Returning to my autobiographical voice, I will end this journal posting on a personal note. Although my professional identity is that of writer and founder of the Central Park Conservancy, my personal identity is that of a wife and mother. My first husband Ed Barlow was born in the borough of Queens and grew up there in the community of Forest Hill Gardens, which ranks in terms of its design by Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr., as an epitome of the 1930s green-neighborhood style of urban planning. My second husband Ted Rogers is, like me, an adopted New Yorker, an identity that in his case is burnished by the fact that he is a runner of thirty-three consecutive New York City Marathons near the last lap of which I would welcome him with a hug as he entered the Park through Engineers Gate at Fifth Avenue and Ninetieth Street before running the final two miles to the finish line on the West Drive next to the West 67th Street entrance to Tavern on the Green.
My daughter Lisa Barlow has lived in New York City since 1964 when she was a six-year-old first-grader in an independent day school for girls. When I leaf through The Central Park and come to the description of Girls’ gate at Fifth Avenue and One Hundred Second Street on page 143, I think of her as I read that the Park “aims to provide within the city limits an extensive rural playground, and a country experience. Girls’ may all have an opportunity to escape at intervals, from the close confinement of the city streets, and to spend pure and happy hours in direct communication with the beauties of nature.”
Obviously, it does not matter through which gate one enters the park, its intelligently designed circulation system assures that all parts of its landscape cohere as an interconnected whole and most of the impressions it makes are democratically universal. What holds true for girls is equally true for boys and people of both sexes in other age categories. My son David, who was born in this city in 1972 and spent his childhood years in a Park Avenue apartment two blocks east of Engineer’s Gate at Fifth Avenue and 90th Street, has also set down roots as a lifelong New Yorker. Although we did not live in the vicinity of Boys’ Gate, which is at Central Park West and one Hundredth Street, David, like his sister Lisa, had youthful experiences in Central Park that imprinted him with a love of nature and outdoor recreational activities. This outcome would have pleased the chairman of the Boys’ Gate committee, James J. Hines, Jr., whose description of Boys’ Gate reads as follows: “The Boys’Gate will convey the idea that ample opportunity for physical development is considered a necessary part of the free education system of the city, and will recognize the fact that it is not thought sufficient for the young students to be liberally provided with schools, school-teachers, and school-books, but that they must also be induced to study freely the works of nature, and to be led to an intelligent appreciation of the sermons that are to be found in stones, the books that are printed in running brooks, and the good that exists in everything that comes from the bountiful hand of the Creator.”
In addition to its two definitions as “the Garden of Eden” and “the ultimate abode of the just,” the word “paradise” is used generically to refer to an ideal or idyllic place. Yes, I feel deeply blessed to have had Central Park play such a large role in my life in terms of work, play, friends, and family. At the same time I am grateful now to have its dear familiarity and four seasons of varied types of landscape beauty readily accessible as a balm to soothe the geriatric aches and pains of longevity. Exercise! Exercise! Exercise! – That’s it. Let’s take a walk! As I watch snowflakes swirling outside my window as I write these words, I am thinking of how wonderful it will be to watch children sledding on the park’s gentle slopes tomorrow.
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