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Central Park, An American Masterpiece: A Comprehensive History of the Nation's First Urban Park
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About Central Park, An American Masterpiece: A
Product Description Marking Central Park's 150th anniversary, this is a history of America's first public park and a paragon of 19th-century landscape design. Sara Cedar Miller, the official historian and photographer for the Central Park Conservancy, draws on extensive research to tell the story of the park's creation, placing it in the context of 19th-century American art and social history, and illuminating the roles of its designers Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux and their associate Jacob Wrey Mould. Period views and originals plans and drawings are complemented by Miller's photographs, which show the restored park's glory. From Publishers Weekly Miller is the park's official historian and photographer, and her authority shows, revealing some new facets to this most overexposed of urban spaces. Original plans and drawings (many published for the first time) sit alongside modern-day photographs among the more than 200 color illustrations, creating a sense of the history that underlies this man-made urban landscape. Frederick Law Olmsted, one of the park's designers (the other was Calvert Vaux), saw his plan as a balm to soothe the roiling city's ills. Miller finds him remarking that the park "exercises a distinctly harmonizing and refining influence upon the most lawless classes of the city-an influence favorable to courtesy, self-control, and temperance." Bethesda Terrace was Vaux's ideological baby and, according to Miller, was influenced by the work of John Ruskin, Alexander von Humboldt and Thomas Cole. Kenneth T. Jackson, president of the New-York Historical Society, writes in his preface that Central Park is not the oldest public open space in either the world or the United States, nor is it the largest, nor even the most beautiful, yet it has the most contrast to its surroundings, an expression of a city's life and exuberance, and is properly celebrated as such by Miller. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc. About the Author Sara Cedar Miller has been the photographer for the Central Park Conservancy since 1984 and its official historian since 1989. Her photographs have been published in books and periodicals around the world. Miller lectures extensively on the history of Central Park and serves as a park spokesperson on radio and television. She received an M.A. in art history from Hunter College and an M.F.A. in photography from Pratt Institute. Miller lives in Park Slope, Brooklyn.
