Places with history - Central Park

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virtualvariety

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3 years ago

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Topics: Information, Learning, Creativewriting, History, Travel

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Let's start this post with an iconic song by the great Sinatra that will undoubtedly transport us to a golden age of the city that never sleeps.

In the world there are many beautiful places that captivate and inspire many things, these places also become a reference of that city or country, so in Virtual Variety we created a new section or space, dedicated to tell the story of those places that undoubtedly fall in love and make many people want to go to visit them always, we decided to start with a magical place. We have all seen Central Park in many movies, cartoons and even in series, especially in the famous "CSI New York or Law and Order SVU". However, it was not always so imposing and beautiful, its history is quite curious.

In the year 1849 New York was a city full of buildings, with a growing number of inhabitants, where life was advancing very fast, however its inhabitants felt suffocated, frustrated, for not having a place to go with their family, a place where they could disconnect from the city and connect with nature. Their situation was so difficult that in order to be in a place full of tranquility, many families decided to visit the cemeteries and escape from the big buildings. A large group of wealthy citizens admired the cities of London or even Paris, because despite being so developed, they had those majestic parks where everyone could relax, spend a pleasant afternoon or just sit and enjoy a nice picnic with family members.

One day the businessman Robert Minturn, who led this group of wealthy citizens, decided to begin to move their influence among the politicians of the city and raised the need for the city to have its first public park in Manhattan, such a place would bring great benefits to New Yorkers, many could spend their days in it, relax, have fun, help workers to forget the stress accumulated in their jobs. Apart from all this, it would give a great value to the land, something that would certainly help the lower class of the city.

Many listened to the petitions, and a long debate began, when we mention the word long, it is because it lasted more than 17 years, it was not until 1857 when the green light was given to start the evaluation of the place where this incredible park for the city would be built. After the City bought the land where this grandiose park would be built, a kind of contest was launched, where the participants with the best ideas on how to make this place unique, until it became a national and international reference, two men were the winners, Frederic Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux.

But there was a huge problem, it turns out that the land purchased by the City, had become a settlement, inhabited by about 1600 people mostly poor African Americans who at one time were slaves, but with the abolition of slavery decided to settle in that place and start a life. The city decided to displace all these inhabitants, one of the settlements was known as the town of Seneca, this place was inhabited by free African Americans, Germans and Irish, the chroniclers comment that this place had schools, churches and cemeteries. As well as this town there were others, but the best known were: Harsenville and Piggery District, in both lived people of different races or nationalities. It is quite logical to conclude why the City bought exactly these lands. The creation of a park was the perfect excuse to make these places disappear, since they did not have the minimum conditions to be inhabited by people, from bad odors to the unsupervised breeding of animals, which increased the risk of diseases.

Building a park on such irregular land was a real challenge, because it was not suitable for buildings and was full of swamps, among other limitations. However, in 1866, what New Yorkers had longed for was completed, a park dedicated to recreation and relaxation, and without knowing it or thinking about it, this place became the Lung of the city. However, after its completion, the new rulers realized how difficult it was to maintain a park of such immensity, so they decided to stop giving it maintenance and for that reason in the following years it was a field of dead vegetation, dry trees and dry land. It was not until 1934 when the new mayor of the city (Fiorello LaGuardia), decided to resume the renovation of the first park in New York, and put in charge of the care of this urban planner Robert Moses, this had not only the task of caring for but also reorganize Central Park.

In 1963 Central Park was declared a National Historic Landmark of the United States, today there have been many renovations, has reached an agreement with public and private entities, for the maintenance and care of the Park, New Yorkers are proud to have this great creation in the heart of their city, many are constantly working to lower the levels of vandalism. These stories are really great, because we always see the places, we visit them but we do not know their origin, no doubt this place is emblematic, and a landmark of New York, we hope you enjoy this publication, soon we will be sharing more similar to this one.