Unique perspectives on New York's 843-acre Central Park viewed exclusively from windows and terraces surrounding it. One hundred forty-three photographs range from intimate fourth-floor scenes to sweeping vistas from 64 stories above the Park. The principal photographer of six books on gardens and landscape architecture, the author concentrates on the landscape of Central Park, revealing its beauty from above during all four seasons, from early morning to night. The photographer's journey took her to more than 100 apartments, offices, hotels, and museums over the course of five years. This book includes quotes by sixteen notable individuals about their experiences of looking down from their windows to the Park, including Giorgio Armani, Candice Bergen, Paul Goldberger, Evelyn Lauder, Donald Trump, and Elie Wiesel. Windows on Central Park will strengthen one's sense of the grandeur and beauty of America's most visited park, and reveal the Park as a towering example of both urban ecology and landscape architecture.
Illustrated throughout with 2-color and tinted maps and drawings and numerous photographs, Rebuilding Central Park is the first close examination of these invaluable 843 acres in more than a century.
Central Park is perhaps the most well-trod and familiar green space in the county. It is both a refuge from the city and Manhattan's very heart; a respite from the urban grind and a hive of activity all its own. 843 carefully planned acres allow some 37 million visitors each year to come and get lost in a sense of nature. Unsurprisingly, the park also inspires a wealth of great writing, and here Andrew Blauner collects some of the finest fiction and nonfiction-- 20 pieces in all, with classics sprinkled among 13 new ones commissioned from great New York writers. Bill Buford spends a wild night in the park; Jonathan Safran Foer envisions it as a tiny, transplanted piece of a mythical Sixth Borough; and Marie Winn answers definitively Holden Caulfield's question of where the ducks go when the park's ponds freeze over. There are bird sightings and fish sightings; Jackie Kennedy and James Brown sightings; and pieces by Colson Whitehead, Paul Auster, and Francine Prose. This vibrant collection presents Central Park, in all its many-faceted glory, a 51-block swath of special magic.
The story of how one woman's long love affair with New York's Central Park led her to organize its rescue from a state of serious decline, returning it to the beautiful place of recreational opportunity and spiritual sustenance that it is today. Elizabeth Barlow Rogers opens with a quick survey of her early life--a middle-class upbringing in Texas; college at Wellesley, marriage, a master's degree in city planning at Yale. And then her move to New York, where she starts a family and, when she finds being a mother and a housewife is not enough, pours herself into the protection and enhancement of the city's green spaces. Interwoven into her own story is a comprehensive history of Central Park: its design and construction as a scenic masterpiece; the alterations of each succeeding era; the addition of numerous facilities for sports and play; and finally, the "anything goes" phase of the 1960s and 70s, which was often fun but nearly destroyed the park. The two narratives continue to entwine as she finds a job in the administration of Central Park, founds the Central Park Conservancy, and transforms both the park and herself--a transformation that has led to the writing of her many books, to travels that have taken her to parks and gardens around the world, and to solidifying the prestige of one of New York's most conspicuous landmarks.
Central Park is "one of the greatest works of art in America" and it has inspired many of America's greatest painters. Among the major figures who have depicted the park's landscapes and activities are Bellows, Chase, Glackens, Hassam, Henri, Hopper, Prendergast, and Sloan, as well as living artists like Christo and Estes. Their work shows early views of the park in construction, its major landmarks, the evolving vistas of the cityscape, and the park's human element--scenes of crowds at play and people in solitary contemplation. Painting Central Park provides a rich and varied visual history of this urban oasis, reflecting much of the American social experience in the quintessential American park.
*Includes pictures *Includes accounts of the park's construction and history written by newspapers and people who worked on it. *Includes a bibliography for further reading *Includes a table of contents "I just want to go through Central Park and watch folks passing by. Spend the whole day watching people. I miss that." - Barack Obama Of all the great cities in the world, few personify their country like New York City. As America's largest city and best known immigration gateway into the country, the Big Apple represents the beauty, diversity and sheer strength of the United States, a global financial center that has enticed people chasing the "American Dream" for centuries. Given that background, it's fitting that the city's most unique landmark, Central Park, sits at the heart of Manhattan and provides a stark contrast to the hustle and bustle surrounding it. As actor Haley Joel Osment once put it, "My favorite place is Central Park because you never know what you're going to find there. I also like that when I look out the windows of surrounding hotels, it's seems like I'm looking out over a forest." In 1811, an ambitious plan was laid out that would transform Manhattan's grid into 2,028 blocks, from Houston Street to 155th Street. Forests would be cut down, hills razed, ponds and streams filled. It took years to survey, and years to complete: at different points in time, one might have seen a long avenue laid out, unpaved, with a scattering of as-yet-unattached six-story buildings amid boulders yet to be cleared and soon-to-be-demolished shantytowns. Ironically, almost no parks were incorporated into the plan, and Central Park would not be built until the end of the 19th century. When Central Park was designed, however, it was an ambitious project on an almost unprecedented affair. As serene as Central Park is today, it's hard to imagine that its creation was an entirely manmade affair consisting of dynamite blasts, tons of imported topsoil, and the labor of thousands of workers. Before the area's transformation, the land was swampy terrain used by impoverished squatters and people who let their livestock roam the grounds, but after nearly 15 years of work, the metamorphosis was nearly complete. Of course, New Yorkers soon came to understand that such a large park required serious upkeep; as historian Robert Caro noted, "Lawns, unseeded, were expanses of bare earth, decorated with scraggly patches of grass and weeds, that became dust holes in dry weather and mud holes in wet...The once beautiful Mall looked like a scene of a wild party the morning after. Benches lay on their backs, their legs jabbing at the sky..." With city resources being pumped into maintaining Central Park, it has become the most visited urban park in the world, and it is a cultural touchstone that draws not only tourists but events. Locals commonly walk or run through the park, and others play sports or simply picnic, but Central Park is also home to monuments of all sorts, including statues dedicated to artists and playwrights, the Strawberry Fields tribute to John Lennon, and an Ancient Egyptian obelisk known colloquially as Cleopatra's Needle. On top of all that, Central Park has a diverse array of wildlife thanks to a sizable reservoir, over 1,000 different species of trees, a zoo, and more. Put simply, Central Park is the most unique place in one of America's most unique cities. Central Park: The History of New York City's Most Unique Landmark chronicles the construction and history of the Big Apple's most famous park. Along with pictures of important people, places, and events, you will learn about Central Park like never before, in no time at all.
A pictorial history of the development of New York City’s Central Park from conception to completion. Drawing on the unparalleled collection of original designs for Central Park in the New York City Municipal Archives, Cynthia S. Brenwall tells the story of the creation of New York’s great public park, from its conception to its completion. This treasure trove of material ranges from the original winning competition entry; to meticulously detailed maps; to plans and elevations of buildings, some built, some unbuilt; to elegant designs for all kinds of fixtures needed in a world of gaslight and horses; to intricate engineering drawings of infrastructure elements. Much of it has never been published before. A virtual time machine that takes the reader on a journey through the park as it was originally envisioned, The Central Park is both a magnificent art book and a message from the past about what brilliant urban planning can do for a great city.
"Windows ME" is the ideal user's guide for the world's most popular operating system. It walks readers through every conceivable kind of configuration, including setting up a small network. It even provides instructions for one of the hottest PC uses today: listening to live radio or watching live TV.
Vornberger's spectacular photography, interspersed with his comments about birds, the park, and photography, will appeal to all bird-watchers, nature lovers, photography aficionados, and visitors to New York's Central Park. Packaged inside the book is a removable foldout pocket guide.
A spellbinding account of the real facts of the Central Park jogger case that powerfully reexamines one of New York City's most notorious crimes and its aftermath. • A must-read after watching Ava DuVernay's When They See Us On April 20th, 1989, two passersby discovered the body of the "Central Park jogger" crumpled in a ravine. She'd been raped and severely beaten. Within days five black and Latino teenagers were apprehended, all five confessing to the crime. The staggering torrent of media coverage that ensued, coupled with fierce public outcry, exposed the deep-seated race and class divisions in New York City at the time. The minors were tried and convicted as adults despite no evidence linking them to the victim. Over a decade later, when DNA tests connected serial rapist Matias Reyes to the crime, the government, law enforcement, social institutions and media of New York were exposed as having undermined the individuals they were designed to protect. Here, Sarah Burns recounts this historic case for the first time since the young men's convictions were overturned, telling, at last, the full story of one of New York’s most legendary crimes.
