A VIEW OF ONE OF CENTRAL PARK'S LAKES. 



CENTRAL PARK, NEW YORK: A WORK OF ART' 



By Harold A. Caparn 



^f^E^'llE designers of Central Park de- 

 C ^cided that the best expression 

 ^^*^lhey could bestow on it, that 

 which would be of the greatest value 

 to the greatest nu nber, was one which 

 would recall the feeling of the woods 

 and meadow, rocks and water, of rural 

 scenery. This would give the relief of 

 suave surfaces of ground and mobile 

 masses of foliage to minds and bodies 

 wearied with the endless rectangularity 

 of the streets. So they laid out a 

 scheme, simple in its main structure, 

 though looking complicated enough on 

 the map, consisting of a road running 

 all around the park, with certain cross- 

 roads to provide for the east and west 

 traffic. Four of these are the famous 

 .sunken roads which are said to have 

 been the means of Olmsted and \'aux 

 gaining the prize, and which they so 

 skillfully treated that you can seldom 

 see them unless close upon them, and 



often cannot see them at all even when 

 crossing them. The reason for conceal- 

 ing them was that they were intended 

 for business traffic, which should be 

 kept out of the park. On this road 

 plan is superposed a system of walks 

 crossing the park in many directions, 

 leading to and helping to create an end- 

 less variety of scenes of grass and trees, 

 lakes and rocks. Several sheets of 

 water of considerable extent occupy the^ 

 sites of former swamps, the muck of 

 which was used to enrich the lawns and 

 woods. These walks penetrate and en- 

 close pieces of ground of the most 

 varied shape, size and expression, ^'et 

 all are connected so admirably that one 

 passes insensibly from one to another, 

 and there is nowhere apparent the 

 shock of arrested dimension of finality 

 that is essential to the expression of 

 architecture but quite foreign to the in- 

 tent of informal design. Everywhere 



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