Central Park

Central Park History • Central Park is a large public, urban park that occupies over a

square mile (341 hectares) in the heart of Manhattan in New York City.

• It is host to approximately twenty-five million visitors each year. Central Park was opened in 1859, completed in 1873 and designated a National Historic Landmark in 1963.

• The park was designed by the famous landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted and the architect Calvert Vaux. While much of the park looks natural, it is in fact almost entirely landscaped. It contains several natural-looking lakes and ponds, extensive walking tracks, two ice-skating rinks (one of which is a swimming pool in July andAugust)

• the Central Park Zoo, the Central Park Conservatory Garden, a wildlife sanctuary, a large area of natural woods, a reservoir with an encircling running track, and the outdoor Delacorte Theater which hosts the "Shakespeare in the Park" summer festivals. Eighty-five per cent of the park's operating budget comes from private sources via the Central Park Conservancy, which manages the park pursuant to a contract with New York City Department of Parks and Recreation.

• While much of the park looks natural, it is in fact almost entirely landscaped. It contains several natural-looking lakes and ponds, extensive walking tracks, bridle paths, two ice-skating rinks one of which is a swimming pool in July and August, the Central Park Zoo, the Central Park Conservatory Garden, a wildlife sanctuary, a large area of natural woods, a 106-acre (43 ha) billion gallon reservoir with an encircling running track, and an outdoor amphitheater called the Delacorte Theater which hosts the "Shakespeare in the Park" summer festivals. Indoor attractions include Belvedere Castle with its nature center.

• the Swedish Cottage Marionette Theatre, and the historic Carousel. In addition there are numerous major and minor grassy areas, some of which are used for informal or team sports, some are set aside as quiet areas, and there are a number of enclosed playgrounds for children.

• The park has its own wildlife and also serves as an oasis for migrating birds, especially in the fall and the spring, making it a significant attraction for bird watchers; 200 species of birds are regularly seen. The 6 miles (10 km) of drives within the park are used by joggers, bicyclists, skateboarders (mostly longboards), and inline skaters, especially on weekends, and in the evenings after 7:00 p.m

Activities in the park

• One of the many carriage horses present throughout the park.

• New York City has had carriage horses since 1935.The carriages have appeared in many films and the first female horse and carriage driver, Maggie Cogan, appeared in a Universal newsreel in 1967.As such, they have become a symbolic institution of the city. After the terrorist attacks of September 11, in a much-publicized event, Mayor Rudolph Giuliani went to the stables himself to ask the drivers to go back to work to help return a sense of normalcy

PedicabsPedicabs have more recently offered visitors a more dynamic way

in which to view the park. Covering three to ten times the distance of a typical Central Park horse carriage ride, pedicabs have become very popular with visitors and New Yorkers alike in the last five years

Sports The Park Drive, just over 6 miles (9.7 km) long, is a haven for

runners, joggers, bicyclists, and inline skaters. Nearly every weekend, races take place in the park, many of which are organized by the New York Road Runners. The New York City Marathon finishes in Central Park outside Tavern on the Green.

• A long tradition of horseback riding in the park was kept alive by the one remaining stable nearby, Claremont Riding Academy until it closed in 2007. At the northern part of Central Park between 106th and 108th streets Lasker Rink and Pool is a large ice skating rink which converts to an outdoor swimming pool in Summer and serves the neighboring communities.

sculptures• Though Olmsted disapproved of the clutter of sculptures in the

park, a total of twenty-nine sculptures have crept in over the years, most of which have been donated by individuals or organizations (and not the city itself). 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 sculpture commission for an American woman. The 1925 statue of the sled dog Balto who became famous during the 1925 serum run to Nome, Alaska is very popular among tourists, reflected in its near polished appearance as the result of being patted by countless visitors.

• The oldest sculpture is "Cleopatra's Needle," actually an Egyptian obelisk of Tutmose III much older than Cleopatra, which was donated to New York by the Khedive of Egypt. The largest and most impressive is equestrian King Jagiello bronze monument on the east end of Turtle Pond. 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 near Fifth Avenue and 110th Street, in the Duke Ellington Circle.

Entertainment

• Each summer, the Public Theater presents free open-air theatre productions, often starring well-known stage and screen actors, in the Delacorte Theater, summer performing venue of the New York Shakespeare Festival. Most, though not all, of the plays presented are by William Shakespeare, and the performances are generally regarded as being of high quality since its founding by Joseph Papp in 1962.

Crime

• Although often regarded as a kind of oasis of tranquility inside a "city that never sleeps," Central Park was once a very dangerous place — especially after dark — as measured by crime statistics. The park, like most of New York City, is considerably safer today, though during prior periods it was the site of numerous muggings and rapes. Well-publicized incidents of sexual and confiscatory violence, such as the notorious 1989 "Central Park Jogger" case, dissuaded many from visiting one of Manhattan's most scenic areas.

• As crime has declined in the Park and in the rest of New York City, many negative perceptions have waned, and the use of common sense is enough to reasonably protect visitors from harm. The park has its own New York City Police Department precinct (Central Park Precinct), which employs both regular police and Auxiliary officers. In 2005, such safety measures held the number of crimes in the park — which has more than 25 million visitors annually — to fewer than one hundred per year (down from approximately 1,000 in the early 1980s). New York City Parks Enforcement Patrol also patrol Central Park.