Central Park

“ But philosophers are uncommon.
To Helen Maitland, leaving Fifth Avenue at Fifty-ninth Street and straying northwestward into the early autumn splendor of the Park, it seemed as though for the first time she could understand the viewpoint of those unidentified myriads to whom New York is a fetich; and as she walked on beneath the trees soon to lay aside their valedictory robes, she appreciated most fully those to whom Central Park is a fetich within a fetich, a guarded flame within the inmost chamber of the shrine. ”

“ And it could be a beautiful city, he thought, at times, as he gazed before him at the long line of airier, lighter, crowded architecture that overlooked the waning greenness of Central Park.
He threw himself with delight against the buffets of the wind and the sting of the cold. ”

“ The Central Park is good for what it will be, rather than for what it is. The summer heat is so very great that I doubt much whether the people of New York will ever enjoy such verdure as our parks show. But there will be a pleasant assemblage of walks and water-works, with fresh air, and fine shrubs and flowers, immediately within the reach of the citizens. All that art and energy can do will be done, and the Central Park doubtless will become one of the great glories of New York. ”

“ To me the lesson of Central Park is that where it is used in the spirit of fraternity and equality, the pleasure in it is pure and fine, and that its frequenters have for the moment a hint of the beauty which might be [Pg 244] perpetually in their lives; but where it is invaded by the motives of the strife that raves all round it in the city outside, its joys are fouled with contempt and envy, the worst passions that tear the human heart. ”

“ Upon that rustic bench in Central Park,
Along a lonesome by-path in the park.
It was the hour, it was that mystic hour
When ’tis no longer day nor yet is night;
And o’er all nature hangs a solemn hush,
And everything is peaceful and serene. ”

“ The congested capitals of Europe had already learnt this lesson; traveled Americans, like William Cullen Bryant, brought it home; and Central Park, planned in 1853, was the first of the great landscape parks to serve as a people’s pleasance. Conceived in contrast to the deflowered landscape and the muddled city, the park alone re-created the traditions of civilization—of man naturalized, and therefore at home, of nature humanized, and therefore enriched. And even today our parks are what our cities should be, and are not. ”

“ There were women driving through Central Park, soft and lovely with early spring, or motoring up to the Clairemont for supper and watching the searchlights from the war-ships along the Hudson, and listening to the music on the roof-gardens and dancing their feet off at that green-topped heaven of youth which overlooks the Plaza where Sherman’s bronze horse forever treads its spray of pine. ”

“ It is impossible to stand amid the whirl and uproar of New York to-day, and imagine men ploughing, and sowing grain, and carting hay into barns, where the City Hall now stands. The conception of nearly all the city lying below the Park, above it farms to Canal Street, beyond that clearings where men are burning brush and logs to clear away the fallow, and still farther on, towards Central Park, an unbroken wilderness, is so dim and shadowy, that we can hardly fix its outlines. ”

“ Slowly ascending Fifth Avenue close to the curb and on through Central Park is like no other experience. The vehicle is so low and open that all resemblance to bus or taxi is lost. Everything is seen from a new angle. ”

“ When the first great disk came down on the city, skimming the treetops of Central Park, heading straight for the Times Square district at that height and rising only when it seemed certain that it would smash itself against one or another of the buildings of Manhattan, none of them could speak for surprise. ”

“ Broad is the way that leadeth to destruction! But in Brooklyn the ways are narrow, and they lead to the Heavenly City of content. Central Park: there you are—the centre of things, hemmed in by walls of pride. ”

“ The Central Park is an anomaly to those who have not deeply studied the tendencies of popular governments. It is a royal work, undertaken and achieved by the Democracy,—surprising equally themselves and their skeptical friends at home and abroad,—and developing, both in its creation and growth, in its use and application, new and almost incredible tastes, aptitudes, capacities, and powers in the people themselves. ”

“ I never go by Central Park in winter without pitying the poor New York youngsters, just hobbling round and round on a half-acre pond where the surface is cut up into powder an inch thick, and the crowd is so dense you can scarcely see the ice. ”

“ So the beautiful mystery of Central Park was not sent to a medical college nor to the Potter’s Field. The next morning Penelope accompanied Richard in his coupé, and Mrs. Louise Van Brunt, her aunt, who had in her carriage two charitable old lady friends, followed the sombre hearse in its slow journey across the bridge to Brooklyn. In a quiet graveyard on the outskirts of the city the dead girl was lowered into the earth. ”

“ The young growth of the trees is particularly noticeable in Central Park, and in this respect it will be many years before we can rival Druid Hill Park near Baltimore, where the grand old trees, raising their majestic heads toward heaven, seem whispering to every passing zephyr hymns of adoration. Here, art may carve meandering roads, span the crystal streams with elaborate bridges, erect statues in honor of man, decorate and adorn to suit the taste of the most fastidious ”

“ Are we going to Central Park?"
"Unless you wish to promenade up and down Fifth Avenue." [Pg 438]
"No, I did say the Park, and we will go there. But let us walk near the edge, not too far away from this marvellous city. Never was there a city like New York for life. I'm sure of that. It's as if every living creature had quicksilver in his veins—or her veins. For I never saw such vital women as one sees here anywhere else! Oh, Claude! When you conquer these wonderful women!"
Her vivacity and excitement were almost unnatural.
"New York intoxicates me to-day!" ”

“ Everything is ahead of time. When little counter-panes of snow are still covering the baby crocuses away off in Central Park, down in Gramercy their pink and yellow heads are popping up all over the enclosure. When the big trees in Union Square are stretching their bare arms, making ready to throw off the winter's sleep, every tiny branch in Gramercy is wide awake and tingling with new life. ”

“ Only twenty years ago, Union Square was “out of town;” twenty years hence, the town will have enclosed the Central Park. Let us consider, therefore, what will at that time be satisfactory, for it is then that the design will have to be really judged.
No longer an open suburb, our ground will have around it a continuous high wall of brick, stone, and marble. The adjoining shores will be lined with commercial docks and warehouses; steamboat and ferry landings, railroad stations, hotels, theatres, factories, will be on all sides of it and above it; all which our park must be made to fit. ”

“ Three fine squares alone break the monotony of all these parallelograms of streets: Washington Square, Union Square, and Madison Square.
On the north, Central Park, with its fine avenues, its hillocks, its valleys, its lakes, and its magnificent terrace over the Hudson, is a very lovely pleasure ground. It is the only place where one can see trees, turf, and flowers. New York does not possess a single garden, public or private, if one excepts the three squares I named just now.
That which strikes the visitor to New York is not the city itself, but the feverish activity that reigns there. ”

“ IN CENTRAL PARK
In Central Park, along the Mall,
We see the gay goat-carriage crawl;
With little boys and girls inside,
Enjoying their exciting ride.
Right willingly each nimble steed
Exerts his very utmost speed;
And o'er the smooth hard road they race
At something like a turtle's pace. ”

“ New York is very proud of its great pleasure-ground, the Central Park, upon which has been lavished all that art and money could accomplish. This Park is a parallelogram in the centre of Manhattan Island, a half-mile wide and two and a half miles long, covering eight hundred and forty-three acres, though nearly one-fourth of this space is occupied by the Croton water reservoirs. ”

“ Along Fifth avenue, from the Fifty-ninth street corner to the upper end of Central Park, there is not a single house that looks reposeful and habitable. Along Park avenue—but Park avenue, for all its flash of creamy brick, is surely one of the most hideous streets in all the world! ”

“ If the reader will look at a plan of New York, he will see that Central Park is really in the centre of the place, if a thing which has length only, or is so nearly without breadth or thickness, can be said to have a centre. South of the Park, the whole island is dense with life and business; it is pretty solidly built up on either side; but to the northward the blocks of houses are no longer of a compact succession; they struggle up, at irregular intervals, from open fields, and sink again, on the streets pushed beyond them into the simple country, where even a suburban character is lost. ”

“ Though of comparatively recent date, the Central Park, the chief pleasure ground of New York, has reached a degree of perfection in the beauty and variety of its attractions, that has made it an object of pride with the citizens of the metropolis. ”

“ It needs some reflection to appreciate the great fact called New York; some previous acquaintance to recognise the prodigious increase, within the last ten or fifteen years, in all that makes a great city. The Fifth Avenue has extended its well-ordered rows of stately mansions and handsome houses almost to the gates of the favourite recreation ground of fast trotters and well-appointed carriages. The Central Park is now a beautiful resort, of which any metropolis might be proud. ”

“ She gives them breathing-room in a dozen civic parks, the largest of which both Nature and Art destine to be the noblest popular pleasure-ground of the civilized world, as it is the amplest of all save the Bois de Boulogne. Central Park covers an area of 843 acres, and, though only in the fifth year of its existence, already contains twelve miles of beautifully planned and scientifically constructed carriage-road, seven miles of similar bridle-path, four sub-ways for the passage of trade-vehicles across the Park, with an aggregate length of two miles, and twenty-one miles of walk. ”

“ The fair young form was taken to the Morgue, and for some days the newspapers were filled with accounts of the mystery of Central Park, and everybody was discussing the strange case.
And what could have been more mysterious?
A young and exquisitely beautiful girl, clad in garments stylish and expensive, although quiet in tone, and such as women of refinement wear, found dead on a bench in Central Park by two young people, whose social position was in those circles where to be [Page 20] brought in any way to public notice is considered almost a disgrace. ”

“ The rest of the large space encircled by the "Crystal Palace" is a public park, containing 145 acres, which includes ample recreation grounds within very easy access of all the people.
Running all round the Central Park (except where it Ward and Centre is intersected by the boulevards) is a wide glass arcade called the "Crystal Palace," opening on to the park. This building is in wet weather one of the favourite resorts of the people, whilst the knowledge that its bright shelter is ever close at hand tempts people into Central Park, even in the most doubtful of weathers. ”

“ With his pockets bulging with stogies and one glowing like a headlight in advance of him he wandered in a sort of coma up Tenth Avenue, crossed to the Riverside Drive, mounted Morningside Heights, descended again through the rustling alleys of Central Park, and found himself at Fifth Avenue and Fifty-ninth Street just as the dawn was paling the electric lamps to a sickly yellow and the trees were casting strange unwonted shadows in the wrong direction. ”

“ Them that didn't have oil stoves brought along plenty of blankets, so as not to be upset with the cold and discomforts of sleeping outdoors. By building fires of the shade trees and huddling together in the bridle paths, and burrowing under the grass where the ground was soft enough, the likes of 5,000 head of people successfully battled against the night air in Central Park alone.
"Ye know I live in the elegant furnished apartment house called the Beersheba Flats, over against the elevated portion of the New York Central Railroad. ”

“ The most expensive large parks, Central Park and Prospect Park, were located without taking advantage of the magnificent natural landscapes of the rivers and bays which distinguish New York and Brooklyn. There are many similar cases. Formerly people built with the backs of their houses upon the rivers and lakes, thus not only excluding the public from continuous access to them but ruining their beauty. Where land along the banks of rivers or along the shores of a lake can, in a city, be fairly well spared from commercial uses, public squares, parks and parkways should be located upon them. ”

“ But the Central Park is a very great fact, and affords a strong additional proof of the sense and energy of the people. It is very large, being over three miles long, and about three quarters of a mile in breadth. ”

“ Many an active school-boy there has more than once temporarily bit the dust. But now rows of street lamps run through that part of the Common, and the precious grass must be protected at all hazards. New York city is scarcely better off. Central Park, miles away from the great majority of the boys in the city, is elegant enough when they get to it; but let them once set their bounds and start a game of ball, or hares-and-hounds, or try a little jumping or running, on any one of those hundreds of beautiful acres, save in one solitary field, and see how soon the gray-coats will be upon them. ”