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History Calvert Vaux Central Park in the Cinema - Movies Shot in Central Park Frederick Law Olmsted Greensward Plan Seneca Village

Most historians of Central Park have stressed the unique genius of one man, Frederick Law Olmsted, allowing even his codesigner, Calvert Vaux, to recede from view. One historian tells us that "the actual design work in the park was functionally divided -- Vaux handled all the structures -- pavilions, boathouses, bridges; Olmsted handled all the rest." Vaux had "deferred to Olmsted in areas of aesthetic decision."

The effacement of Vaux as codesigner began as early as May 1858 when the Central Park commissioners conferred the singular title of architect-in-chief on Olmsted, who had since September 1857 been superintendent, and began paying Vaux a daily wage as his assistant. (Not until January 1859 would Vaux receive the title of consulting architect). Olmsted presented himself thereafter as Central Park's "representative man." Yet had Olmsted worked alone, had Vaux deferred to his partner in "areas of aesthetic decision," the Greensward plan would not have included some of its most distinguishing features.

The premise of the Greensward plan was that Central Park should express an overarching aesthetic motive. In criticizing Viele's plan, Vaux stressed its lack of an "artistic conception" that would give shape and coherence to the viewer's experience. The goal of Vaux's entire professional career had been to arrange "useful and necessary forms" to "suggest the pleasant ideas of harmonious proportion, fitness, and agreeable variety to the eye." For Vaux to have accepted the unplanned and eclectic aesthetic of commercial pleasure gardens would have meant surrendering his judgment as an artist. Olmsted, who admired the harmonious composition of English parks, found spontaneous manners as well as eclectic design distasteful. The partners envisioned the future Central Park as a unified work of landscape art.

Even before the competition, both men had advocated government support of culture and the arts, and they viewed a public park as one public institution among many -- schools, museums, libraries -- that could enhance the lives of free citizens. Central Park would be a democratic institution by virtue of the mixing of classes within its boundaries. And the Greensward plan itself postulated what individuals from all social backgrounds would do there: admire the artistically composed scenery, enjoy the spectacle of the crowd on the promenade, and engage in the wholesome exercise of driving, riding, walking, skating, or -- for those who played cricket -- competitive sports.

Not all New Yorkers shared Vaux and Olmsted's assumption that the "popular idea of a park is a beautiful open green space." That fact became apparent in the weeks after the award was announced. Critics for the Horticulturalist and the Crayon (a Ruskinian art journal) heartily endorsed the selection of the Greensward plan, but the Herald's James Gordon Bennett found it "impossible to make head or tail" of the winning plan and attributed its selection entirely to politics; Frank Leslie's Illustrated Weekly admired the winning plan but primarily the Parade, playgrounds, Mall, and concert hall, ignoring the naturalistic landscape effects; and even the Times, Post, and Courier and Enquirer, which all agreed that the first prize was deserved, hoped that the plan would be modified by "valuable hints" that appeared in some of the losing plans.

Although the park commissioners arranged a public exhibition of the plans, they also attempted to preempt public discussion of the design. A week after the awards, a committee (Andrew Green and Charles Russell) consulted with Superintendent Olmsted and proposed three modifications: first, thirty-foot roads with a fifteen-foot pedestrian walk on one side and a twenty-foot bridle path running for three miles on the other to save paving costs and to satisfy the expectations of equestrians (the Greensward plan itself pointed to the example of the Vienna Prater and the Bois de Boulogne in proposing sixty-foot carriage drives, flanked on either side by twenty-foot walks); second, a cost-saving "footway" instead of the carriage entrance between Sixth and Seventh avenues; and third, drawing the western drive deeper into the park, thereby reducing the Parade.

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