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and Vaux were imposing an idealized landscape of gentle slopes and sweeping vistas on a rugged, 778-acre site charac- terized by bogs, ridges, plateaus, and rocky outcrops. In fact, the tract ranged from 11.5 ft to 134 ft in elevation. The designers attempted to follow the contours of the land in a general way, but extensive earth- moving, blasting, draining, grading, and planting would be required. Executing the work was a group of engineers who represented a rising professional class. In their book The Park and the People: A History of Cen- tral Park (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1998), Roy Rosen- zweig and Elizabeth Balckmar de- scribe the engineers’ role: Central Park’s engineering ‘corps,’ as its members called themselves, primarily determined how the building of the park would be organized and managed. As salaried employees, engineers occupied a position mid- way between a new class of corporate employers...and independent contrac- tors.... [They] brought to the park a professional ideology that linked ex- pertise to efﬁciency and, like Olmsted, they valued discipline and ‘duty.’ The engineers who oversaw the creation of Central Park were typical- ly young men from outside the city who had one or two years of secondary or postsecondary edu- cation as well as some practical experience working on canals or railroads. William H. Grant, who succeeded Viele as the chief engineer, had spent nine years as an assistant engi- neer on an Erie Canal enlargement project. Other notable Central Park engineers included J.H. Pieper, who designed the transverse roads; Montgomery Kellogg, who later became the chief engineer of the New York De- partment of Public Parks; and Addi- son Crittendon Rand, who pioneered the development of rock drills and air compressors for use in excavation. Of particular importance in the early years of the park’s development was George E. Waring, Jr., who at the age of 24 was appointed the project’s drainage engineer. He designed and oversaw the installation of an extensive drainage system consisting of clay pipes and tiles buried approximately 4 ft below the sur- face and 40 ft apart. In addition to improving the condition of the ground, the sys- tem transformed a former bog into the large lake that ﬁgured so prominently in the landscape design. The lake was among the ﬁrst of the park’s amenities to be enjoyed by the public, attracting ice-skaters as early as December 1858, even before it was completed. Other early priorities were the de- sign and construction of the transverse [42 ] Civil Engineering JANUARY 2013 W I K I M E D I A C O M M O N S , TO P ; L I B R A RY O F C O N G R E S S , B OT TO M A N D O P P O S I T E Although Olmsted is better known today, architect Calvert Vaux was an equal partner in the creation of the Greensward Plan. One of the hallmarks of that plan was that it separated carriage roads, bri- dle paths, and pedestrian paths so that all could enjoy the park’s scenic vistas at their own pace. Creating the idyllic landscape illustrated in this print by Currier & Ives required extensive earth- moving, blasting, draining, grading, and planting.