Document Based Question

Whose Park Is It Anyway? - The Contested Terrain of Central Park

(The inspiration for this DBQ came from four students in the New York City History course at the ethical Culture Fieldston School. Thanks to Danielle Feris, Kirsten Leon, Jenny Levine and Todd Muhlfelder,)

Respond to the following statement above using the documents below.

The creation of Central Park was undoubtedly a triumph for New York City. But it was a tragedy for those who were displaced to create the park. The creation of Central Park was a form of "urban imperialism" representing the "manifest destiny" of a merchant class vision of urban society.

You may agree or disagree in whole or in part with the quotation. Whatever position you take, be sure to construct an original thesis that addresses the who, what, when and especially the why . Be sure to consider the counter-argument, what historians might say in opposition to your thesis, and to support your argument with material from Professor Jackson's lecture and other sources. Remember that "triumph" and "tragedy" are relative terms, so be sure to define them carefully. Do not forget to consider the point of view of the sources you employ, especially in the areas of class, race, ethnicity and party affiliation.

Please address the question discussing at least three of the following:

1. party conflicts between Republican reformers and Democratic machines

2. paternalistic attempts to reform the residents of the "Five Points," the Irish and African Americans

3. the movement of development up Manhattan Island

4. competition with European cultural capitals

5. the romantic/ transcendentalist understanding of recreation and nature

6. contemporary artistic and literary movements (transcendentalism and the Hudson River School)

7. race and ethnicity in 19^th century New York City

Document A

George Catlin, Five Points, 1827

Lithograph from Valentines Manual, Courtesy of the New York Historical Society

This lithograph represents one view of the neighborhood in which the Cholera epidemic struck earliest and with greatest force. Note how the artist portrays the behaviors of the Five Points residents (and visitors). Consider how this view of the Five Points might contribute to a desire to reform the environment of the City.

Document B

Thomas Cole's Arcadian or Pastoral State (1836).

http://www.primenet.com/~byoder/tcearly.jpg

Painters of the Hudson River School believed that pastoral, or picturesque, landscapes would offer the urbanite relief from the evils of the city followed this sentiment. Thomas Cole was admired for his pastorals portraying this ideal landscape. "Transcendentalist" writers, such as New Yorkers Washington Irving, William Cullen Bryant and James Fenimore Cooper, sought to portray such divine and therapeutic nature in their literature.

Document C

William Cullen Bryant, A New Public Park New York Evening Post, July 3, 1844

http://www.uea.ac.uk/eas/People/homberger/crse/The%20American%20City/readingwk5.htm

As early as 1833, William Cullen Bryant, editor of the New York Evening Post, began to advocate for an urban park as an antidote to urbanization, industrialization and development. On July 1844, Bryant made his first public appeal for a large public park. His first proposal was for a tract of land called Jones Woods on the East River. After much debate the state legislature in 1853 authorized the purchase of a centrally located parcel of 760 acres bounded on the south by 59th Street, on the north by 106th Street (later extended to 110th Street), on the west by Eighth Avenue, and on the east by Fifth Avenue.

On the road to Harlem, between Sixty-eighth street on the south and Seventy-seventh on the north, and extending from the Third Avenue to the East River, is a tract of beautiful woodland, comprising sixty or seventy acres, thickly covered with old trees, intermingled with a variety of shrubs. The surface is varied in a very striking and picturesque manner, with craggy eminences, and hollows, and a little stream runs through the midst. … There never was a finer situation for the public garden of a great city. Nothing is wanted but to cut winding paths through it, leaving the woods as they now are, and introducing here and there a jet from the Croton aqueduct, the streams from which would make their own waterfalls over the rocks, and keep the brook running through the place always fresh and full. . . .

…Commerce is devouring inch by inch the coast of the island, and if we would rescue any part of it for health and recreation it must be done now.

All large cities have their extensive public grounds and gardens, Madrid and Mexico City their Alameda's, London its Regent's Park, Paris its Champs Elysée, and Vienna its Prater. There are none of them, we believe, which have the same natural advantages of the picturesque and beautiful which belong to this spot. It would be of easy access to the citizens, and the public carriages which now rattle in almost every street in this city, would take them to its gates. The only objection which we can see to the plan would be the difficulty of persuading the owners of the soil to part with it.

Document D

Asher B. Durand, Kindred Spirits, 1849,

New York Public Library, gift of Julia Bryant

http://www.thecityreview.com/empircit.html

Asher B. Durand's Kindred Spirits shows painter Thomas Cole and writer William Cullen Bryant on a promontory in the Catskill wilderness.

Document E

Irish road construction crew, Harper's Weekly

http://www.ashp.cuny.edu/video/ffive-6.html

Through a system of patronage and charity, Tammany Hall and other Democratic Party machines, commanded the allegiance of many voters. Lacking a national social safety net, poor citizens relied on local machines for employment through patronage, unemployment support, support for widows and help with funeral expenses. Public works projects like Central Park provided politicians with patronage opportunities ranging from lucrative contracts to day work digging ditches.

Document F

Seneca Village Map, 1856

as interpreted and illustrated in a Topographical Survey for the Grounds of Central Park by Egbert Viele.

http://projects.ilt.columbia.edu/seneca/frame.html

Seneca Village was located between 82nd and 89th Streets and Seventh and Eighth Avenues in New York City. The community emerged in 1825 and by 1855, by which time the census documents approximately 264 people living in the village,. By the 1840s, it had become a multi-ethnic community of African Americans, Irish, and German immigrants. The village supported three churches, a school and two cemeteries and was the first significant community of black property owners. It was demolished in 1857 to make way for the Park.

Document G

New-York Daily Times, July 9, 1856

Collection of The New-York Historical Society

http://projects.ilt.columbia.edu/seneca/04inhab.html

The New-York Daily Times, the ancestor of today's Times, was founded in 1851 by Henry Jarvis Raymond and George Jones. While officially independent of party affiliation, editor Henry Raymond was active in the Whig Party and instrumental in the founding of the Republican Party. The paper supported the Republican Party's pro-business and anti-slavery positions. In articles on the proposed Central Park, the area proposed was disparaged as a wasteland filled "nuisance industries" and disease-ridden shantytowns of "tramps," "squatters," and "thieves."

Document H

Article from the New York Daily Tribune, July 9, 1856

Collection of The New-York Historical Society

http://www.nyhistory.org/teachers/36.html

This article details the laying of the cornerstone for the first African Methodist Episcopal Church of Yorkville. This church was located on 85th Street, between 7th and 8th Avenues.

Document I

New-York Daily Times, Wednesday, July 9, 1856

Collection of The New-York Historical Society

http://www.nyhistory.org/education/teachers/moveforpark.html

On July 21, 1853, the city legislature passed a bill authorizing the use of eminent domain to take the land between 59th and 106th Streets, from Fifth Avenue to Eighth Avenue to build the Central Park. Residents were ordered to vacate the area by August 1, 1856.

Document J

Andrew Williams Affidavit of Petition, 1853

Collection of The New-York Historical Society

http://projects.ilt.columbia.edu/seneca/affidavit3.html

Andrew Williams, an African American "boot black," was among the first property owners in Seneca Village. On September 27, 1825, he purchased three lots of land from John and Elizabeth Whitehead for $125.00. On July 21, 1853, the city government passed a law authorizing that all the land from 59th to 106th Streets between Fifth Avenue and Eighth Avenue be taken by right of eminent domain in order to build Central Park. The City Surveyor was ordered to assess the value of each piece of property to establish its value. Andrew Williams was disappointed at the valuation of his land and filed an "Affidavit of Petition to the Commissioners of Central Park" in the State Supreme Court of New York.

Original

Transcript

Andrew WillIams the owner of Lots number 22 (twenty-two) 23 (twenty-three) and 43 (forty-three) in Block number 786 (Seven Hundred and eighty-six) on Commissioners Map--lying between 85th and 86th Street seventh and Eighth Avenues.--objects to the report of the Comrs on the ground that the Comrs have not allowed to said Williams a sufficient sum for the aforesaid lots--they having allowed him the sum of $2335. When he Williams declares said lots with the house at $4000--and said Williams further says that he has been offered the sum of $3500--for said lots and that he refused the same. X [his mark] Andrew Williams

Document K

Plan for the Improvement of The Central Park, Adopted by the Commissioners, June 3rd, 1856; Published 1858

"GREENSWARD", the Original Plan for Central Park, 1858. (Fabos, Milde & Weinmayr 1968)

http://www.umass.edu/greenway/Greenways/2GR-his.html

Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux's design for Central Park, known as the Greensward Plan, envisioned fountains and statues, promenades and terraces, lakes for ice skating and paths for carriage rides. When Central Park opened, it would be a place where the elite could "see and be seen" and workers could engage in rest and "recreation." Olmsted and Vaux's design for the park required extensive re-ordering of the site to create a contrived pastoral and picturesque simulation of nature.

Document L

Central Park Will Be a Beer-garden, Editorial in the New York Herald, 1858

Elizabeth Stevenson, Park Maker: A Life of Frederick Law Olmsted. (New York: Macmillan, 1977; London: Collier Macmillan, 1977), 179, citing editorial in Herald, 1858.

http://www.uea.ac.uk/eas/People/homberger/crse/The%20American%20City/readingwk5.htm

Editorialists debated the goals and possible effects of the park proposal. In the following opinio, from the New York Herald, the author warns of the class conflicts the park will manifest. [ William Astor son of millionaire John Jacob Astor, owned the land under much of the tenement housing of New York. Edward Everett was president of Harvard in the 1840s, later a Congressman and Senator from Massachusetts and eventually Secretary of State.]

It is all folly to expect in this country to have parks like those in old aristocratic countries. When we open a public park Sam will air himself in it. He will take his friends whether from Church street, or elsewhere. He will knock down any better dressed man who remonstrates with him. He will talk and sing, and fill his share of the bench, and flirt with the nursery-maids in his coarse way. Now we ask what chance have William B. Astor and Edward Everett against this fellow-citizen of theirs. Can they and he enjoy the same place? Is it not obvious that he will turn them out, and that the great Central Park will be nothing but a beer-garden for the lowest denizens of the city, of which we shall yet pray litanies to be delivered.'

Document M

George Loring Brown, View of Central Park, 1862

Collection of the Museum of the City of New York

http://www.mcny.org/Painting/pttcat39.htm

Document N

John H. Rauch, M.D., Public Parks: Their Effects upon the Moral, Physical and Sanitary Condition of the Inhabitants of Large Cities, 1869

John H. Rauch, M.D., Public Parks: Their Effects upon the Moral, Physical and Sanitary Condition of the Inhabitants of Large Cities, with special reference to the City of Chicago (Chicago: S.C Griggs, 1869), 83.

http://www.uea.ac.uk/eas/People/homberger/crse/The%20American%20City/readingwk5.htm

The moral influence of parks is decided. Man is brought in contact with nature,-is taken away from the artificial conditions in which he lives in cities; and such associations exercise a vast influence for good. In the Central Park, only 568 arrests have been made, and these of a trivial character, out of 30,731,847 visitors . . . By creating them, we take many away from other and worse places, and thus do much toward encouraging the young in habits of sobriety and temperance . . .

Document O

Emma Stebbins Fountain Sculpture of the Angel of the Waters at Bethesda Terrace, 1868; Placed in Park 1873

NYC Parks and Recreation Photo Archive

http://www.centralparknyc.org/cp-1800-1858.html

Emma Stebbins' Angel of the Waters fountain was unveiled in 1873. At the dedication, the artist's brochure quoted the Biblical verse from the Gospel of St. John 5:2-4: "Now there is at Jerusalem by the sheep market a pool, which is called... Bethesda... whoever then first after the troubling of the waters stepped in was made whole of whatsoever disease he had." The Croton System supplied fresh mountain water to the fountain at a time when many homes were still served by easily contaminated wells. The lily in the Angel's hand represents purity while the four figures below represent Peace, Health, Purity, and Temperance..

Document P

William Cullen Bryant, Picturesque America; or, The Land we live in. (1872-74)

William Cullen Bryant Picturesque America; or, The Land we live in, D. Appleton and company: New York , 1872-74. Text and images from pp.556-7

New York Public Library Digital Collections

http://digilib.nypl.org/dynaweb/hudson/wwm985/@Generic__BookTextView/1339

William Cullen Bryant, editor of the New York Evening Post, was an early advocate for an urban park as an antidote to urbanization, industrialization and development. In 1872 he wrote Picturesque America to celebrate America's picturesque landscape, both natural and man-made.

Terrace, Central Park, Appleton and Company

© New York Public Library Digital Collections

At the corner of Fifty-ninth Street and Fifth Avenue is the main entrance to Central Park… Less than twenty years ago the greater part of its area was a mass of rude rocks, tangled brushwood, and ash-heaps. It had long been the ground for depositing city-refuse, and tens of thousands of cart-loads of this refuse had to be removed before the natural surface could be reached or the laying out begun. Art had to do every thing for it. There were no forests, no groves, no lawns, no lakes, no walks; it was simply a desert of rocks and rubbish. The ground was excavated for lakes; trees were planted; roads and paths laid out; bridges built. The result is a pleasure-ground that is already famous, and only needs a little more maturing of the trees to be one of the handsomest parks of the world. It is not so large as some in Europe, but its size is not insignificant, numbering eight hundred and forty-three acres; while, in its union of art with Nature, its many bridges of quaint design its Italian-like terrace, its towers and rustic houses, its boat-covered lakes, its secluded rambles and picturesque nooks, its wide walks and promenades, it is unapproached in this country and unexcelled abroad… One element of satisfaction in the park is that it is not only an art and picturesque triumph--it is a popular success. Its superb drives are thronged with vehicles, while all its paths are occupied on summer afternoons by immense numbers of the people.

Document Q

Jacob Riis, How the Other Half Lives, New York, Charles Scribner's Sons (1890)

The hypertext edition of How the Other Half Lives at Yale University: http://www.yale.edu/amstud/inforev/riis/chap6.html#para1

In the 1880s the torch of slum reform passed from moral reformers to the muckrakers, specifically the crusading journalist Jacob Riis. As a police reporter, Riis saw firsthand the suffering of those living in the “foul core of New York’s slums,” what was called “Mulberry Bend,” the area immediately north of what remained of the Five Points. His exposés of conditions in “the Bend” soon led to the appointment of a new Tenement House Commission in 1884, to the demolition of the tenements in Mulberry Bend and to the creation of Mulberry Park.

Where Mulberry Street crooks like an elbow within hail of the depravity of the Five Points, is “the Bend,” foul core of New York’s slums... Around “the Bend” cluster the bulk of the tenements that are stamped as altogether bad, even by the optimists in the Health Department... In scores of back alleys, of stable lanes, and hidden byways... [the poor] share such shelter as the ramshackle structures afford with every kind of abomination rifled from the dumps and ash barrels of the city... There is scarce a lot that has not two, three or four tenements upon it, swarming with unwholesome crowds.

…There is but one “Bend” in the world, and it is enough. The city authorities, moved by the angry protests of ten years of sanitary reform effort, have decided that it is too much and must come down. Another Paradise Park will take its place and let sunlight and air to work such transformation as at the Five Points, around the corner of the next block. Never was change more urgently needed.