Central Park

Central Park is bordered on the north by Central Park North (which is 110th Street east of Fifth Avenue), on the east by Fifth Avenue, on the south by Columbus Circle and Central Park South (which is 59th Street east of Fifth Avenue), and on the west by Central Park West (which is Eighth Avenue south of Columbus Circle).
in the Park at left, the East River and the Empire State Building in the distance
The park was designed by Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux, who later created Brooklyn's Prospect Park. While much of the park looks natural, it is in fact highly landscaped. It contains several artificial lakes, extensive walking tracks, two ice-skating rinks, a wildlife sanctuary, and grassyy areas used for myriad sporting pursuits, as well as playgrounds for children. The park is a popular oasis for migrating birds, and thus is popular with bird watchers. The 9.7 km road circling the park is popular with joggers, bicyclists and inline skaters, especially on weekends when automobile traffic is banned.

Each summer, the Public Theatre presents free open-air theatre productions, often starring well-known stage and screen actors, in the Delacorte Theatre. Most, though not all, of the plays presented are by William Shakespeare.

Other events include NYC Midsummer and Summerstage, and the finish line of the New York Marathon.

History

The Saw Kill was dammed to make the Lake (illustration, left), and the spoil was laid as a curving earthen dam, with the carriage drive laid on it so naturally, that few today realize it is a dam. The solidly frozen Lake is a thing of the past, now that the Park is at the center of an urban heat island.
Central Park was run down and hit a low at the end of the 1970s, when the Central Park Conservancy was founded (1980). The Conservancy restores and maintains the park under contract from the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation, an early successful public private partnership. The city has transferred direction of ongoing restoration and maintenance to the Conservancy.

Notable features of Central Park include Strawberry Fields, Bethesda Terrace, the Belvedere Castle.
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Many encroachments on the park have been fought off over the years: within the Park are the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Central Park Zoo, ranged behind the pre-existing Arsenal, Manhattan's oldest.

Although often regarded as a kind of oasis of tranquility inside a "city that never sleeps," Central Park has had a reputation over the years as a dangerous place, especially after dark. Well-publicized incidents of violence and rape, such as the infamous "Central Park Jogger" case, have contributed to this perception.

Sculptures

Though Olmsted disapproved of the clutter of sculpture, a good deal has crept in. Much of the first statuary to appear in the park was of authors and poets, clustered along a section of the Mall that became known as Literary Walk. The better-known sculptors represented in Central Park include Augustus Saint-Gaudens and John Quincy Adams Ward.. The "Angel of the Waters" at Bethesda Terrace by Emma Stebbins, 1873, was the first large public sculture commission for an American woman. The 1926 statue of the sled dog Balto who became famous during the 1925 serum run to Nome, Alaska is very popular among tourists. The oldest sculpture is "Cleopatra's Needle," actually a much older Egyptian obelisk, of Tutmose III, donated to New York by the Khedive of Egypt. North of Conservatory Water, the sailboat pond, there is a larger than life statue of Alice, sitting on a huge mushroom, playing with her cat, while the Hatter and the March Hare look on. A large memorial to Duke Ellington created by sculptor Robert Graham was dedicated in 1997 at near Fifth Avenue and 110th Street, Duke Ellington Circle.

Miscellaneous issues

The New York Philharmonic gives an open-air concert every summer on the Great Lawn and the Metropolitan Opera presents two operas. Many concerts have been given in the park: the Simon and Garfunkel reunion; Diana Ross, 1983.

The Central Park Medical Unit is an all-volunteer ambulance service that provides completely free emergency medical service to patrons of Central Park and the surrounding streets. CPMU also operates a rapid-response bike patrol, particularly during major events such as the New York City Marathon, the 1998 Goodwill Games, and concerts in the park.

In 2004, the organization United for Peace and Justice wanted to hold a rally on the Great Lawn in opposition to the continued occupation of Iraq. The City denied UFPJ's application for a permit, on the basis that a mass gathering on the Great Lawn would be harmful to the grass, and that such damage would make it harder to collect private donations to maintain the Park. UFPJ charged that Mayor Michael Bloomberg was willing to allow other large gatherings on the Great Lawn, but was discriminating against the demonstration so as to curry favor with the Republican Party, which was holding its quadrennial convention in New York City. Nevertheless, a court rejected UFPJ's challenge to the denial of the permit.
Central Park has one of the last stands of American Elms in the northeastern U.S., 1700 of them, protected by their very isolation from Dutch Elm Disease. Central Park was the site of the unfortunate unleashing of starlings in North America (cf. Invasive species) Over a quarter of all the bird species found in the United States have been seen in Central Park.

In 2002 a new genus and species of centipede was discovered in Central Park. The centipede is about four-tenths of an inch long, making it one of the smallest in the world. It is named Nannarrup hoffmani (after the man who discovered it) and lives in the park's leaf litter, the crumbling organic debris that accumulates under the trees.

See also