Main entry:

Miller, Sara Cedar, author.

Title & Author:

Before Central Park / Sara Cedar Miller.

Publication:

New York : Columbia University Press, [2022]
©2022

Description:

x, 611 pages : illustrations (some color), facsimiles, maps, portraits ; 25 cm

Notes:
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Preface -- Introduction -- Part I. Topography. 1. The first settlers, 1625-1664 ; 2. Along the Kingsbridge Road, 1683-1845 ; 3. The other Bensons, 1754-1846 ; 4. The War at McGowan's Pass, 1776-1784 ; 5. Valentine Nutter, 1760-1814 ; 6. The War of 1812 -- Part II. Real estate. 7. Dividing Bloomingdale, 1667-1790s ; 8. Dividing Bloomingdale, 1790-1824 ; 9. Dividing Bloomingdale, Seneca Village: the residents, 1825-1857 ; 10. Dividing Bloomingdale, Seneca Village: the Black leaders, 1825-1857 ; 11. Dividing Harlem, 1825-1843 ; 12. Dividing Yorkville, 1785-1835 ; 13. The receiving reservoir, 1835-1842 ; 14. A changing land, 1845-1853 -- Part III. The idea of a park. 15. The battle of the parks, 1844-1852 ; 16. Becoming Central Park, 1853-1856 ; 17. The first commission, 1855-1857 ; 18. Designing Central Park, 1857-1858 ; 19. Extending the park, 1859-1863 -- Epilogue -- Afterword / Elizabeth W. Smith.

Summary:

"With more than eight hundred sprawling green acres in the middle of one of the world's densest cities, Central Park is an urban masterpiece. Designed in the middle of the nineteenth century by the landscape architects Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux, it is a model for city parks worldwide. But before it became Central Park, the land was the site of farms, businesses, churches, wars, and burial grounds-and home to many different kinds of New Yorkers. This book is the authoritative account of the place that would become Central Park. From the first Dutch family to settle on the land through the political crusade to create America's first major urban park, Sara Cedar Miller chronicles two and a half centuries of history. She tells the stories of Indigenous hunters, enslaved people and enslavers, American patriots and British loyalists, the Black landowners of Seneca Village, Irish pig farmers, tavern owners, Catholic sisters, Jewish protesters, and more. Miller unveils a British fortification and camp during the Revolutionary War, a suburban retreat from the yellow fever epidemics at the turn of the nineteenth century, and the properties that a group of free Black Americans used to secure their right to vote. Tales of political chicanery, real estate speculation, cons, and scams stand alongside democratic idealism, the striving of immigrants, and powerfully human lives. Before Central Park shows how much of the history of early America is still etched upon the landscapes of Central Park today"-- Provided by publisher.

ISBN:

9780231181945 hardcover
0231181949 hardcover
electronic book
9780231543903

Subject:

HISTORY / Americas (North, Central, South, West Indies)
Central Park (New York, N.Y.) History.
New York (N.Y.) History 1775-1865.
New York (N.Y.) History Colonial period, ca. 1600-1775.
New York (N.Y.) Histoire 1775-1865.
New York (N.Y.) Histoire ca 1600-1775 (Période coloniale)
Central Park (New York, N.Y.) Histoire.
New York (State) New York Central Park
New York (State) New York

Form/genre:

History

Holdings:

Location: Library main 315547
Call No.: 315547
Copy: 1
Status: Available