Calvert Vaux

The Greensward

On April 22, and 23, 2022, the Department of Records and Information Services will commemorate the 200th birthday of Central Park architect Frederick Law Olmsted with a pop-up exhibition featuring the original Greensward plan. Submitted by Olmsted and co-designer Calvert Vaux, the master plan won the Central Park design competition in 1858.

Rarely seen in public, the Greensward plan is considered a masterpiece of 19th-century landscape architecture. The story of its creation begins in 1852 when the city’s Board of Aldermen formed a Special Committee on Parks. The Committee proposed to build “The Central Park” in the rectangle bounded by Fifth Avenue, Eighth Avenue, Fifty-Ninth Street, and 106th Street.  

Map from Greensward Presentation board no. 2., 1858. Department of Parks and Recreation Drawings Collection, NYC Municipal Archives

The two-mile-long by half-mile-wide 778-acre plot, with its rocky outcrops of Manhattan schist rising above stagnant bogs, and home to nearly 1,600 people, was a challenging site for a park. On June 21, 1853, the State Legislature authorized the mayor to issue stock, known as the Central Park Fund, to compensate the 561 owners of the more than seven thousand lots that comprised the future park.  

Delays arising from purchasing the property and political wrangling over a plan for the park delayed further action until October 1857, when a new state-appointed Board of Commissioners announced a formal design competition. All planners were instructed to incorporate specific requirements into their presentations: at least four transverse roads, a parade ground for military drills, a two-to-three-acre formal flower garden, three playgrounds for “healthful exercise,” a site for concerts and exhibitions, a prominent fountain, an observation tower, and a winter skating area, as well as “at least one institution of cultural uplift or practical knowledge.” The budget was $1.5 million. The March 1, 1858 deadline for submissions was moved back a month when the requirements were expanded to include specifications and costs for building roads and preparing the land.  

Greensward Presentation board no. 5., (view of the Lake from Vista Rock),1858. Department of Parks and Recreation Drawings Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

Well-connected English-born architect, Calvert Vaux, and the Connecticut-born writer, surveyor, clerk, and farmer, Frederick Law Olmsted were casual acquaintances but shared a belief that nature had the power to uplift and refine the human spirit. Vaux suggested they collaborate on a design. The new partners worked nights and weekends through the fall and winter of 1857-58. Vaux’ son, Downing, remembered that the drawings needed “a great deal of grass to be put in by the usual small dots and dashes, and it became the friendly thing for callers to help in the work by joining in and adding some grass to Central Park.”

Preparations continued to the last possible moment. Arriving at the Arsenal Building late in the evening of March 31, 1858, Olmsted and Vaux had to wake a caretaker to deliver their proposal, only minutes before the deadline for entries. Logged in under the name “Greensward” as Entry #33, it was brilliant in presentation and bold in design. Their large-scale master plan was executed on high-quality paper mounted on linen; their two texts,  the Description of a Plan for the Improvement of the Central Park “Greensward” and Particulars of Construction and Estimate, were professionally printed by William Cullen Bryant & Co.; and their twelve presentation boards featured a mix of graphite drawings, albumen prints and oil sketches related to particular views, some accompanied by a lithograph of a map to show its location.

Presentation board no. 4, detail, (view across the Lake toward Vista Rock). The “present outlines” view, attributed to the studio of photographer Matthew Brady, shows fields bordered by a stone wall, with Vista Rock rising in the background to a lookout tower. Department of Parks and Recreation Drawings Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

Presentation board no. 4, detail, (view across the Lake toward Vista Rock). The “effect proposed” view, painted by Vaux’s brother-in-law (Hudson River School artist Jervis McEntee), shows the fields have been replaced by the Lake, rising to a landscaped hill topped by an early version of Belvedere Castle. Department of Parks and Recreation Drawings Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

With monetary prizes being awarded to the top four entrants, the commissioners were hopeful that proposals would arrive from leading European experts in park design, but they received only two foreign entries and those were of little distinction. The entries were arranged for viewing in rented offices at 637 Broadway, along with summaries of the written components of the submissions. On April 28, 1858, the commissioners made their selections. The grand prize of $2,000 went to Vaux and Olmsted.  

Olmsted and Vaux believed in creating “scenery” that appeared to be natural, and that the park “should present an aspect of spaciousness and tranquility, with variety and intricacy of arrangement, thereby affording the most agreeable contrast to the confinement, bustle, and monotonous street-division of the city.”

They named their plan “Greensward,” a word that means ground covered with green grass. Visitors today can easily observe how the designers reserved large areas of the park for pastoral scenery with open greenswards bordered by shrubberies and groves of trees, often with nearby open water to reflect foliage and give a feeling of depth to the landscape.  

Presentation board no. 9, detail. The “effect proposed” shows Bogardus Hill (now known as the Great Hill) with a Monumental Tower. Department of Parks and Recreation Drawings Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

The Greensward plan has long been recognized as a work of genius. The Olmsted and Vaux traffic circulation system separating walkers, horseback riders, and carriages, and the sunken transverse roads, are often considered their most innovative concepts. The plan is also notable for its inclusion of lakes and ponds. The successful installation of these features proved their mastery of landscape design on a grand scale.

The Greensward plan accepted by the board was seen through to completion, with one significant change. As the design competition played out, a consensus developed among the commissioners to extend the park to 110th Street. The additional area, filled with steep rock formations, spring-fed swampland, and thick vegetation, seemed a natural part of the park, and the cost of grading the rocky terrain to incorporate it into the city street grid would have been exorbitant. In April 1859, the board requested that the state legislature approve the purchase of the additional sixty-five acres, along with a budget to provide for construction. It took until 1863 to settle the eminent domain disputes over the property valuations.

Presentation board no. 2, detail, (view toward ball field and Umpire Rock). The “effect proposed” shows a pavilion for visiting spectators (never built) sits on Umpire Rock, while ballplayers take the field in the foreground. Department of Parks and Recreation Drawings Collection, NYC Municipal Archives.

The Department of Parks displayed the Greensward plan in the Arsenal, their headquarters in Central Park, for many years. In 2015, the original plan was transferred to the Municipal Archives and a high-quality replica took its place in the Arsenal.   

Read the full story of the Olmsted and Vaux collaboration and creation of the Greensward plan in The Central Park, Original Drawings for New York’s Greatest Treasure, by Cynthia Brenwall, and plan a visit to the Municipal Archives on April 22 or 23 to examine this extraordinary artifact.

Open for public viewing, free timed tickets are required to ensure safety. Tickets are available for 30-minute visits on the following dates: April 22, 2022 - 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. and April 23, 2022 - 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Use this link to sign up for your free tickets:

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/celebrate-olmsted-bicentennial-the-greensward-plan-for-the-central-park-tickets-288125680667?aff=ebdsoporgprofile

The Central Park: Original Designs for New York’s Greatest Treasure, a conversation with author Cynthia Brenwall

The Department of Records & Information Services is pleased to announce The Central Park: Original Designs for New York’s Greatest Treasure, will be in bookstores beginning Tuesday, April 16. We asked author Cynthia Brenwall, conservator at the Municipal Archives, to share her favorite stories about the park and to highlight some of the beautiful drawings from the collection that are featured in the book.

Kenneth Cobb: One of the most striking drawings in the collection, the gilded bird cage, is on the cover of the book. Is it true that the cages contained live birds in the early years of the park?

Ornamental birdcage on a blue stone pedestal, 1864.

Attributed to Jacob Wrey Mould, architect.

Black ink and watercolor with pencil on paper, 18 ½ x 13 ¼ inches

Cynthia Brenwall: Yes, they put live birds in the cages for the enjoyment of visitors promenading on the mall near the Terrace. We do not know when they removed the cages, but their bases are still in the park today, used to hold large floral planters.

KC: It must have been difficult to choose from the more than 1,500 drawings of the park in the collection. Can you describe how you came up with the overall organization of the book?

CB: With so many amazing drawings in our collection, my hardest task was selecting items that best represented different areas of the park. The creators of the park, Olmsted and Vaux, felt that the view and the scenic landscape that they devised were the most important aspect of the park. I wanted to find a way to convey how they made sure a visitor would experience a “respite for the eye and the soul,” as I put it, from any point in the park. In the southern end of the park they installed a formal landscape with linear views and features such as distinctive bridges, natural looking bodies of water and pathways for pedestrians, horses and carriages. Moving northward in the park, the view becomes more rugged featuring the natural landscape of rock outcroppings, rolling hills and long vistas. Finally, there is the ceremonial and architecturally detailed Bethesda Terrace and Mall—the heart of the park.

Map of Central Park, c. 1875. Black ink on linen, 24 x 74 inches.

This map shows work both planned and completed as of the mid-1870s. It includes Drives, Rides, Walks, bridges, named gates, and major structures as well as several building that were being planned at the time but were never completed.

In the early stages of shaping how I would display the drawings in the book, I found a very detailed map of the park from 1872. As I began identifying all the places on the map that corresponded to the drawings I realized I could organize the book as though the visitor were strolling through the park, enjoying these ever-changing, but always pastoral, views.

Huddlestone Arch, plan showing the southern elevation and a schematic sketch of the north side, 1864.

Black ink with pencil on graph paper, 13 ¼ x 16 ½ inches

KC: We often say that along with the Brooklyn Bridge, Central Park was one of the greatest public works achievements of the 19th century. What were some innovative features of the park that you found illustrated in the drawings?

CB: Probably the best known feature is the transverse roads. Again, it was all about the views. The designers knew they had to accommodate vehicular traffic across the park but did not want to spoil the views, or the visitors’ sense of being in a natural landscape. The below-grade transverse roads brilliantly solved the problem. This design feature contributed to Vaux and Olmsted’s submission, “The Greensward” being selected as the winning entry in the contest to design the Park

Another of my favorite innovative designs is the Huddlestone Arch in the northern section of the park. It is constructed completely out of stones excavated during park construction. It uses only gravity (no mortar or other binding materials) to hold it together and it is still today a load-bearing (cars and trucks instead of horse drawn carriages) roadway carrying the East Drive over the Loch. The largest stone is estimated to weigh two tons.

Plan of Terrace drainage, showing drains and basin, 1863. Black and red ink colored washes and pencil on graph paper, 16 x 13 inches

Some of the most fascinating drawings are those pertaining to the unseen, but very necessary drainage system devised for the swampy areas of what became the park. George E. Waring, Jr., age 23, was the original drainage engineer. He developed a spider web of clay drains that carried water in and out of the park lands, and the collection contains stunning drawings of the wells and how the system worked.

Another new technology illustrated by the drawings were tree grates—probably not something that park visitors give much thought to. They were first developed in Paris as a way to allow trees to root deeper in the earth along walkways, and to prevent people from trampling on new plantings. The first use of tree grates in America was our Central Park.

Ornamental tree gratings, ironmonger’s details, c. 1872. Ink and watercolor on paper, 18 x 20 inches

KC: What are some of the other hidden secrets of the park that you discovered during your research for the book?

Drinking fountain on the Esplanade, elevation, stonecutter’s and ironmonger’s contract, 1865. Jacob Wrey Mould, architect.

Black and colored inks with colored washes on paper, 14 x 10 inches

CB: Drinking fountains! The park planners knew how important water would be for park visitors, both human and animal. And speaking of water for animals, the design for the drinking trough for horses is a lovely example of their attention to the smallest detail. We have two drawing that show drinking fountains for horses, one of which is still in the park today at Cherry Hill near the Lake. It features Minton Tiles and bird baths above the drinking trough.

The drinking fountains for people are placed throughout the park. Several near the Terrace included a hidden luxury—water would pass over blocks of ice providing chilled water on hot summer days. During the early years of the park, the drinking fountains featured a shared common cup attached with a chain to the fountain. Fears of communicable diseases, such as cholera and yellow fever, led to the end of the common cup practice after 1910.

KC: I expect that many readers will enjoy the drawings of the Paleozoic Museum and the rendering of what they thought a dinosaur would look like.

CB: There was to be a Paleozoic Museum on the west side of the park. They built the foundation for the museum, and plaster models of the dinosaurs, but the City’s political leaders at that time, ca. 1871, preferred lighthearted entertainment rather than educational or cultural institutions within the park.

Paleozoic Museum, transverse view with specimens, 1870. Ink and watercolor on paper, 19 x 26 inches.

This side view shows an example of an interior scene proposed for the museum, which was to include aquariums, geological specimens as well as reconstruction of dinosaurs in the main exhibition hall.

KC: Have you thought of a name for your dinosaur?

CB: No, not yet. Maybe we should make that into a contest… name the dinosaur??!!

KC: Are all the features of the park that we enjoy today included in the original design?

Swedish Schoolhouse (Svenska Skolhauset), perspective view and ground plan. Magnus Isaeus, architect, 1876. Black ink and pencil on paper, 21 x 14 inches.

The Swedish Schoolhouse is the only structure in park that was originally designed for something other than Central Park

CB: The Swedish Schoolhouse (now the marionette theater and called the Swedish Cottage) is the only building that was not designed specifically for the park. It had been built as the Swedish entry into the Philadelphia World Exhibition of 1876 and was later transplanted to Central Park. Over the years it has served as a bike shelter, an entomological laboratory, a library and even a Civil Defense headquarters during WWII.

And of course legendary Park Commissioner Robert Moses made numerous changes to the park. The original park plan did not include playgrounds as we know them, but rather large open areas for “healthful recreation.” Moses installed nearly forty “pocket playgrounds” throughout the park in the 1930s and early 40s.

KC: I know that you conducted a great deal of research to provide context for the illustrations in the book. What were some of the most useful resources?

CB: I made extensive use of Parks Commission and Department annual reports here in our Municipal Library, as well as the minutes and reports of the City’s legislative bodies—the Common Council, Board of Aldermen, etc. in the Municipal Archives. These government records helped me follow how changes in the city’s political landscape translated into changes in our park landscape. They also provided good factual data about payments, work timelines and specific projects that were completed during a given time period.

KC: What is your favorite place in the Park?

Drinking fountain for horses, bronze details, 1871. Black and red ink with colored washes on paper, 17 x 25 inches

CB: I love the more wild and untamed landscapes of the north end of the park. There are many hidden features to discover near the Loch and it feels like you are wandering through the country-side.

KC: Favorite drawing?

CB: There are so many amazing drawings in our collection. I love the tilework designs within the Bethesda Terrace Arcade. I spent a lot of time on the conservation treatment of that drawing and the tiles are stunning. But my absolute favorite drawing is the simple temporary enclosure post that I used at the end of the book. It is minimal and elegant and represented to me that no detail was too small to be overlooked in the design of the park. That, and the fact that it is one of the few drawings to include the names of the architects Calvert Vaux and Jacob Wrey Mould as well as Frederick Law Olmsted who was serving as the president and treasurer of the Board of Commissioners.

Temporary enclosure posts for Central Park, 1872.

Ink and watercolor on paper, 19 x 12 inches

This preliminary study was prepared by Vaux and Mould and was approved by Olmsted, who was serving as the president and treasurer of the Board of Commissioners at the time.