The Park and the People: A History of Central Park

by Roy Rosenzweig, Elizabeth Blackmar

This "exemplary social history" (Kirkus Reviews) is the first full-scale account of Central Park ever published. Elizabeth Blackmar and Roy Rosenzweig tell the story of Central Park's people―the merchants and landowners who launched the project; the immigrant and African-American residents who were displaced by the park; the politicians, gentlemen, and artists who disputed its design and operation; the German gardeners, Irish laborers, and Yankee engineers who built it; and the generations of New Yorkers for whom Central Park was their only backyard. In tracing the park's history, Blackmar and Rosenzweig give us the history of New York, and bring to life larger issues about the meaning of the word "public" in a democratic society.

Genres: History, New York, Nonfiction, Cities, American History, Urban Planning, Urban Studies

640 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 1992

Reviews

[Jennifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great book tells the full story of Central Park. Lots of good research, stories, stats. Recommended if you like history, details, and city planning.

[John Bohnert · Rating 3 out of 5]

Too much detail kept me from giving this book a higher rating.

[Graham Barrett · Rating 3 out of 5]

(Read in 2014, Review from 2024)

Read this in junior year of college for a paper I did on urban green spaces and comparing Central Park with the High Line. Thought it was fine.

[Madelyn Miller · Rating 4 out of 5]

The meaning of public space is the topic of Roy Rosenzweig and Elizabeth Blackmar’s The Park and the People: A History of Central Park, which follows New York’s most famous green space from initial conception to its contemporary use. Combining urban, political and design history with a New Social history lens, the authors give an overview of the park as both a physical space and abstract embodiment of public ideals, resulting in both the familiar narrative of American ingenuity as well as a revisionist account of one of America’s most famous parks.
Rosenzweig and Blackmar structure their findings chronologically, beginning with the political and socioeconomic makeup of nineteenth century Manhattan and the multiple expectations and interpretations of the park, most of which fell along class lines. The elites who conceptualized and built the park wanted three things: a park to compete with those of Europe, a place to see and be seen by other elites, and a place of “naturalness” to pacify the immigrant and working classes. The latter groups wanted a democratic and egalitarian space for unrestricted assembly and recreation. The authors argue that despite its supposedly public status, the park became and remains a space reserved for middle and upper classes.
Their argument, that although Central Park was created with the promise of being a public space it was destined to be a place of class division, is coherent and convincing. The authors give multiple examples of immigrant and working classes being excluded from public life, but the argument would have been sufficiently made without the seemingly endless policy and real estate data that overwhelms the first half of the book. Despite the often unnecessary attention to detail, the authors demonstrate the highly discriminative nature of a supposedly public space and how these problems are still present today.

[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

This history of NYC’s iconic public park reframes its history as one of a battle for space by classes. From its very founding, which cleared out black and irish communities to make room for a place for the city’s elites to compete with European elites in beauty, as well as push for a social setting for elites to mingle and the idea that all residents of the city would benefit by access to seeing a natural environment. The poor immigrant and black residents of the city were systematically excluded from both participation in the park, through informal policies such as carriage access and formal running of the park by the better classes, to explitly banning of large public gatherings or popular recreational activity such as picnics or sports by the poor. It builds upon Rosensweig’s work around how struggles for access to recreation is just as important as workplace struggles, and how space is harnessed for elites if not unchallenged.

[Cindy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good history of Central Park, if somewhat frustrating. (I really wanted to like it given the author - I expected more of a pure social history from Saint Roy.)

That being said, it is not *bad* by any means. Feels like there is way too much emphasis on the people at the top of the project. The labor and people who used the park feel somewhat glossed over. Also, the last 50 years seems terribly crammed in - it really should merit more than a single chapter.

Does a good job of laying out the political intrigues that went along with building the park, but also left me thinking on more than one occasion, "This was one of the dumber public works ideas at the time."

A little dry in spots, a little too much of rich-white-elite-agnst in others, but I don't think you're going to find a more comprehensive history of Central Park.

[Tom Darrow · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this book or a grad school class on urban history and liked it overall, but man was it a beast to read. Over 500 pages and 150 years of park history are crammed into this book.

The authors make the argument that Central Park was important for NYC history, and also US history, as a meeting place of different social classes, which helped America become more democratic. While some of that argument is convincing (esp. it's role on NYC history), the impact on American history overall isn't as well established.

Positives... well researched, wide variety of sources, good pictures and maps to illustrate ideas. Covers a wide variety of topics like landscape design, politics, race relations, etc.

Negatives... a bit too intellectual for your main stream crowd. The biggest knock against this book is its length. The authors could have made the same points with 100 fewer pages.

[Samuel · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a history of Central Park that focuses on the people: both the upper and lower classes. While planners and upper class New Yorkers have claimed that “the Park” would be for all people and hopefully encourage moral uplift, it took time for the lower class to negotiate its place and rights within a generally upperclass endeavor. While there are a few fascinating stories in the twentieth century (Robert Moses for example and the privitization of public facilities beginning in the 1970s), the vast majority of the book looks at the nineteenth century--as the park was originally dreamed up, designed, and then used by various people.This is a rather exhaustive study of Central Park--a fascinating and important landscape in America and its landscape history--that is a useful resource to anyone curious about how the iconic place came to be.

[Sarah Finch · Rating 5 out of 5]

A thorough and judicious appraisal of the history of Central Park, viewed through the question of whose park is it anyway? No mere dry recitation of people and events, Rosenzweig and Blackmar look at the sociological implications of a public park that often caters to private interests in one of the most racially and economically diverse cities in the world. Filled with noteworthy trivia (the sheep of Sheep Meadow were exiled to Brooklyn!) and excellent and tying together the narrative strands of history that span generations, this is unquestionably one of the best books about my hometown that I have ever read.

[Bonnie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Every hidden detail of how this great oasis came into being. A conveyor belt of facts and fun.