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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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?

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?

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.

The complete plans of Central Park are in our online gallery, order a reproduction.