Painting the Town -- Museum of the City of New York

As early as 1833, William Cullen Bryant, editor of the New York Evening Post, began to advocate for setting aside a sizable chunk of undeveloped land before urban growth engulfed the whole of Manhattan Island.¹ In July 1844, through the editorial page of his newspaper, Bryant made an appeal for a public park of the size and scope already found in major European cities. Debate and political maneuvering ensued,² culminating in the state legislature's authorization in 1853 for the city's purchase of a centrally located parcel of 760 acres bounded on the south by what would become 59th Street, on the north by 106th Street (later extended to 110th Street), on the west by Eighth Avenue, and on the east by Fifth.³

Those favoring development of a park described the tract as a "wasteland" populated by "squatters" living in "shanties," thereby establishing the traditional view justifying the takeover of what was in reality Seneca Village, a poor but cohesive community of mostly African American farmers and workers, many of whom owned their homes and land, paid taxes, and maintained three churches, a school, and a cemetery.⁴ Also within the 760 acres were other less organized communities, home to Irish pig farmers and German day laborers; these, too, were uprooted for the realization of what came to be known as the Greensward Plan, designed by the landscape design team of Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux, to develop the tract into "the culmination of England's picturesque landscape tradition molded to American vision."⁵

New York's citizens eagerly awaited the benefits of this enormous undertaking. Rather than wait for the whole enterprise to be finished, the public put each segment of the park to use as it was completed. Although the formal opening of the entire park would not occur until 1865, by 1862 the Ramble, the first three-and-a-half miles of roadway, the Mall, and the Lake annually attracted 2 million visitors on foot and seven hundred thousand by carriage. The roadways, smoothly graveled, encouraged more residents to take up horseback riding, while the Lake's first winter of good ice stimulated new interest in ice skating (see plate 40).

In this view, executed in 1862, the newly planted trees allow a wide-ranging view of the unfinished park, in particular the roadways that appear to meander but in fact were planned to carry both east-west and north-south traffic. On the horizon glimmer the far-off city buildings, their reduced scale emphasizing the new delights of the acres of swamps, rocks, hog farms, and slaughterhouses transformed by Vaux and Olmsted into a multi-faceted urban pleasure ground that Harper's Monthly hailed as "the finest work of art ever executed in this country."

Expatriate artist George Loring Brown's romantic, atmospheric landscapes established him as one of mid-nineteenth-century America's most prominent painters. Studies in Paris had introduced him to the academic landscape compositions of Claude Lorrain, whom he copied so often and so convincingly that he earned the nickname "Claude" Brown. Although he lived in Italy, the artist often crossed the Atlantic to undertake commissions in Boston and New York.

Notes:

1 Ian R. Stewart, "Politics and the Park: The Fight for Central Park," New-York Historical Society Quarterly 61, nos. 3 -4 (July -August 1977): 126.

2 For an in-depth discussion of the various camps arguing for and against a park, see Roy Rosenzweig and Elizabeth Blackmar, The Park and the People: A History of Central Park (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1992).

3 One hundred and forty-three of the acres, for which there was no charge, were two city reservoirs for Croton water. One of these has since been filled in and is now known as the Great Lawn.

4 The New-York Historical Society exhibition Before Central Park: The Life and Death of Seneca Village (January 29 to August 10, 1997) presented much of this little-known information, most of which was uncovered by Rosenzweig and Blackmar's research published in The Park and the People.

5 Henry Hope Reed and Sophia K. Duckworth, Central Park: A History and a Guide (New York: Clarkson N. Potter, 1967), p. 2.


View of Central Park 1862 George Loring Brown (1814 -1889) Oil on canvas, 20 X 42 Gift of Miss Lillian Draper, 72.42
As early as 1833, William Cullen Bryant, editor of the New York Evening Post, began to advocate for setting aside a sizable chunk of undeveloped land before urban growth engulfed the whole of Manhattan Island.¹ In July 1844, through the editorial page of his newspaper, Bryant made an appeal for a public park of the size and scope already found in major European cities. Debate and political maneuvering ensued,² culminating in the state legislature's authorization in 1853 for the city's purchase of a centrally located parcel of 760 acres bounded on the south by what would become 59th Street, on the north by 106th Street (later extended to 110th Street), on the west by Eighth Avenue, and on the east by Fifth.³ Those favoring development of a park described the tract as a "wasteland" populated by "squatters" living in "shanties," thereby establishing the traditional view justifying the takeover of what was in reality Seneca Village, a poor but cohesive community of mostly African American farmers and workers, many of whom owned their homes and land, paid taxes, and maintained three churches, a school, and a cemetery.⁴ Also within the 760 acres were other less organized communities, home to Irish pig farmers and German day laborers; these, too, were uprooted for the realization of what came to be known as the Greensward Plan, designed by the landscape design team of Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux, to develop the tract into "the culmination of England's picturesque landscape tradition molded to American vision."⁵ New York's citizens eagerly awaited the benefits of this enormous undertaking. Rather than wait for the whole enterprise to be finished, the public put each segment of the park to use as it was completed. Although the formal opening of the entire park would not occur until 1865, by 1862 the Ramble, the first three-and-a-half miles of roadway, the Mall, and the Lake annually attracted 2 million visitors on foot and seven hundred thousand by carriage. The roadways, smoothly graveled, encouraged more residents to take up horseback riding, while the Lake's first winter of good ice stimulated new interest in ice skating (see plate 40). In this view, executed in 1862, the newly planted trees allow a wide-ranging view of the unfinished park, in particular the roadways that appear to meander but in fact were planned to carry both east-west and north-south traffic. On the horizon glimmer the far-off city buildings, their reduced scale emphasizing the new delights of the acres of swamps, rocks, hog farms, and slaughterhouses transformed by Vaux and Olmsted into a multi-faceted urban pleasure ground that Harper's Monthly hailed as "the finest work of art ever executed in this country." Expatriate artist George Loring Brown's romantic, atmospheric landscapes established him as one of mid-nineteenth-century America's most prominent painters. Studies in Paris had introduced him to the academic landscape compositions of Claude Lorrain, whom he copied so often and so convincingly that he earned the nickname "Claude" Brown. Although he lived in Italy, the artist often crossed the Atlantic to undertake commissions in Boston and New York. Notes: 1 Ian R. Stewart, "Politics and the Park: The Fight for Central Park," New-York Historical Society Quarterly 61, nos. 3 -4 (July -August 1977): 126. 2 For an in-depth discussion of the various camps arguing for and against a park, see Roy Rosenzweig and Elizabeth Blackmar, The Park and the People: A History of Central Park (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1992). 3 One hundred and forty-three of the acres, for which there was no charge, were two city reservoirs for Croton water. One of these has since been filled in and is now known as the Great Lawn. 4 The New-York Historical Society exhibition Before Central Park: The Life and Death of Seneca Village (January 29 to August 10, 1997) presented much of this little-known information, most of which was uncovered by Rosenzweig and Blackmar's research published in The Park and the People. 5 Henry Hope Reed and Sophia K. Duckworth, Central Park: A History and a Guide (New York: Clarkson N. Potter, 1967), p. 2.