Rebuilding Central Park

Rebuilding Central Park

Author: Elizabeth Barlow Rogers

Publisher: MIT Press (MA)

Published: 1987-01

Total Pages: 160

ISBN-13: 9780262181273

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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.


Ed Koch and the Rebuilding of New York City

Ed Koch and the Rebuilding of New York City

Author: Jonathan Soffer

Publisher: Columbia University Press

Published: 2012-01-31

Total Pages: 526

ISBN-13: 0231150334

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In 1978, Ed Koch assumed control of a city plagued by filth, crime, bankruptcy, and racial tensions. By the end of his mayoral run in 1989 and despite the Wall Street crash of 1987, his administration had begun rebuilding neighborhoods and infrastructure. Unlike many American cities, Koch's New York was growing, not shrinking. Gentrification brought new businesses to neglected corners and converted low-end rental housing to coops and condos. Nevertheless, not all the changes were positive--AIDS, crime, homelessness, and violent racial conflict increased, marking a time of great, if somewhat uneven, transition. For better or worse, Koch's efforts convinced many New Yorkers to embrace a new political order subsidizing business, particularly finance, insurance, and real estate, and privatizing public space. Each phase of the city's recovery required a difficult choice between moneyed interests and social services, forcing Koch to be both a moderate and a pragmatist as he tried to mitigate growing economic inequality. Throughout, Koch's rough rhetoric (attacking his opponents as "crazy," "wackos," and "radicals") prompted charges of being racially divisive. The first book to recast Koch's legacy through personal and mayoral papers, authorized interviews, and oral histories, this volume plots a history of New York City through two rarely studied yet crucial decades: the bankruptcy of the 1970s and the recovery and crash of the 1980s.


New York City's Central Park

New York City's Central Park

Author: Louise Chipley Slavicek

Publisher: Infobase Publishing

Published: 2009

Total Pages: 121

ISBN-13: 1438119356

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New York City's Central Park is the most visited urban park in the United States, with more than 25 million visitors each year. Designed in 1857 by the man who would become America's most famous landscape architect, Frederick Law Olmsted, and his partner, Calvert Vaux, Central Park was intended to provide New Yorkers with a serene and scenic "rural" refuge from the noise and bustle of city life. Yet transforming the rocky, swampy park site into the rolling meadows, lush woodlands, and pristine lakes would prove an extremely time-consuming and labor-intensive endeavor. Thousands of workers drained marshes, blasted away boulders, and planted a quarter billion trees, flowers, and shrubs to create the 843-acre green oasis in the heart of Manhattan as envisioned by Olmsted and Vaux.


Saving Central Park

Saving Central Park

Author: Elizabeth Barlow Rogers

Publisher: Knopf

Published: 2018-05-15

Total Pages: 337

ISBN-13: 1524733563

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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.


Rebuilding the American City

Rebuilding the American City

Author: David Gamble

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2015-12-22

Total Pages: 403

ISBN-13: 1317631056

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Urban redevelopment in American cities is neither easy nor quick. It takes a delicate alignment of goals, power, leadership and sustained advocacy on the part of many. Rebuilding the American City highlights 15 urban design and planning projects in the U.S. that have been catalysts for their downtowns—yet were implemented during the tumultuous start of the 21st century. The book presents five paradigms for redevelopment and a range of perspectives on the complexities, successes and challenges inherent to rebuilding American cities today. Rebuilding the American City is essential reading for practitioners and students in urban design, planning, and public policy looking for diverse models of urban transformation to create resilient urban cores.


Central Park

Central Park

Author: John S. Berman

Publisher: Barnes & Noble Publishing

Published: 2003

Total Pages: 136

ISBN-13: 9780760738863

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Designed by Frederick Law Olmstead and Calvert Vaux, America’s first and largest urban landscaped park features meandering paths and lush vegetation. The amazing story of the park’s creation and evolution is revealed in more than 100 vintage photographs dating back to the mid-1800s, along with fascinating details on such landmarks as Belvedere Castle, the Reservoir and the Ramble.


The Park and the People

The Park and the People

Author: Roy Rosenzweig

Publisher: Cornell University Press

Published: 1992

Total Pages: 642

ISBN-13: 9780801497513

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Delineate the politicians, business people, artists, immigrant laborers, and city dwellers who are the key players in the tale. In tracing the park's history, the writers also give us the history of New York. They explain how squabbles over politics, taxes, and real estate development shaped the park and describe the acrimonious debates over what a public park should look like, what facilities it should offer, and how it should accommodate the often incompatible.


The Central Park

The Central Park

Author: Cynthia S. Brenwall

Publisher: Abrams

Published: 2019-04-16

Total Pages: 958

ISBN-13: 1683353188

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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.


The Bridges of Central Park

The Bridges of Central Park

Author: Jennifer C. Spiegler

Publisher: Arcadia Publishing

Published: 2006

Total Pages: 150

ISBN-13: 0738538612

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The bridges of Central Park are whimsically elegant and practical in their efficiency. Straddling great rock formations, roads, bridle trails, footpaths, and waterways, more than 50 ornate bridges and arches enable over 60 miles of pathways to fit neatly within a 1.3-square-mile recreational space on Manhattan Island. Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux's competition-winning Greensward Plan of 1857 enabled Central Park to become the first landscaped public urban park in America. Architects Vaux and Jacob Wrey Mould designed the bridges, including some of America's oldest cast-iron spans. These graceful structures provide breathtaking vistas and unique venues for visitors and artisans alike. Standing inconspicuously in most cases and with bold pronouncement in others, they are thoughtfully placed to assure a timeless beauty and ongoing utility. Built at great expense and well integrated with the surrounding natural and engineered terrain, park bridges continue to circulate horseback riders, pedestrians, and horse-drawn carriages effortlessly through the man-made haven. The Bridges of Central Park celebrates the beauty and dimension of these structures, which provide relief for crowded paths and are frequently subjects of the photographer's eye.