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The Making of Central Park <br />This article is part one of a two-part series on New York City’s <br />Central Park. The second part, which will discuss the park’s <br />bridges, will be published in the February issue. <br />A MODEL FOR urban parks worldwide, New York <br />City’s Central Park is widely admired for its land- <br />scape architecture. It also deserves recognition, <br />however, as an achievement of civil engineering. Rarely has a <br />state government shown such foresight as did the New York <br />legislature when in 1853 it passed the Central Park Act, set- <br />ting aside a large, rectangular tract of land in the middle of <br />Manhattan for public use. Many city residents favored the <br />idea, thanks in part to the outspoken ad- <br />vocacy of William Cullen Bryant, a poet <br />and newspaperman, and Andrew Jack- <br />son Downing, who, much like Freder- <br />ick Law Olmsted, the founder of Ameri- <br />can landscape architecture, believed that <br />open spaces had a civilizing effect and <br />wanted to achieve that in New York City. Yet three more <br />years would pass before the legal hurdles were cleared and the <br />city appointed two commissioners to lead the project. One <br />of the commissioners’ first acts was to hire Egbert L. Viele as <br />the chief engineer. <br />Viele, a graduate of West Point, was so eager to lead the <br />project that he had begun surveying the site, without com- <br />pensation, three years earlier. As the chief engineer, he en- <br />listed four teams of surveyors to help complete the job. The <br />survey divided the park into 50 by 50 ft plots, depicting its <br />topography in minute detail. Viele also created geological <br />profiles, a drainage scheme, and a plan for the layout of the <br />park that featured a network of meandering pathways sur- <br />rounding a central parade ground. <br />Viele’s topographical study proved <br />invaluable, but in June 1857 a new, <br />11-member board of commissioners <br />rejected his landscape plan, which was <br />deemed unimaginative. The new board <br />opted to solicit design proposals in an <br />open competition. Viele retained his <br />[40 ] Civil Engineering JANUARY 2013 L I B R A RY O F C O N G R E S S , B OT H <br />History Lesson <br />A print by George Schlegel depicts the <br />southern third of Central Park and its urban <br />setting in the late 19th century. In the years <br />to come, skyscrapers would rise on every <br />side, further emphasizing the contrast be- <br />tween the park and the surrounding city.