Some Central Park History With A Fantastic Map, Circa 1875

Sunday, July 10th, 2011
centralparkoldmap

Click for full-size (Courtesy of LandmarkWest)

A recent newsletter from Landmark West gives the history of a few of Central Park’s many playgrounds, as well as a fascinating old-timey map of the Park, circa 1875.

What I found most interesting (and I’m sure some of you knew this already, but it was news to me) was that the Great Lawn used to be a reservoir — it wasn’t filled in until the 1930s.

If you compare the the 1875 map to today’s layout you can see that the boundaries of many of the Park’s water-features have changed significantly over the years. Good stuff (but I’m a geek for things like this).


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