Central Park (NY)

Perhaps the best-known urban park in the United States, Central Park is an 843-acre area located in the center of New York City, offering a sharp contrast to the expansive metropolitan landscape. Central Park's boundaries are marked by on the south by 59th Street (Central Park South), on the north by 110th Street (Central Park North), on the east by Fifth Avenue, and on the west by Eighth Avenue (Central Park West).

The history of Central Park is extensive. Among many lesser-known inhabitants, it was poet and [Page 232]newspaper editor William Cullen Bryant (1794–1878) who in 1844 called for the creation of a public park that would be open to all inhabitants, no matter their social position or ethnic origins. By 1850, most of the city's ...