The American landscape architects Calvert Vaux (1824–1895), and Frederick Law Olmsted (1822–1903) designed numerous park systems for cities such as Montreal, Niagara Falls, Buffalo, and Detroit. Yet they are best known for their 1858 “Greensward Plan,” the realization of which established New York City’s Central Park (opened 1857) as America’s first major purpose-built urban park. Vaux’s and Olmstead’s idea was to create a park in the style of European public grounds, where people could escape the city’s noise, pollution, and crowding.
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Further Readings:
- Rosenzweig, Roy, and Elizabeth Blackmar. The Park and the People: A History of Central Park. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1992.
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