268 XanDscape Hrcbitecture 



laboiiring classes that the park would be monopolized 

 by those who ride in their carriages, and, on the other 

 hand, some of the wealthy and refined people of the 

 city complained that a park would certainly be 

 usurped by rowdies and low people. It is refreshing 

 now to read Downing's replies to such objections. 

 He stoutly asserted that these social horrors were 

 nothing but phantoms of the imagination; his faith 

 was, as the event has proved, that rich and poor 

 could breathe the same atmosphere of nature and of 

 art and enjoy the same scenery without any jealousy 

 or any conflict. 



"The actual work of constructing Central Park was 

 not begun until six years after Downing's untimely 

 death, but it was his stirring appeals that aroused the 

 city to feel its need, and provision to meet it quickly 

 followed. By rare good fortune, too, designers were 

 found whose artistic temperament and training were 

 akin to his own, so that our first great urban park 

 was planned on such broad lines as he would have 

 approved. The works which followed at once in 

 Brooklyn, Buffalo, Chicago, San Francisco, and other 

 cities were beyond question the result of this same 

 inspiration, so that his keen foresight and conscien- 

 tious devotion to an idea were the most powerful of 

 the agencies which united to initiate the movement 

 which has given to American cities their thousands of 

 acres of parkland during the past thirty-five years. 

 When we think of the health and comfort, the rest 

 and the refreshment, the delight to the eye and the 



