A Walk in the Park

In a city that never sleeps, Central Park is a rare oasis that lets you unwind and relax away from the madness of the city. But it hasn’t always been… 

Back in the early 1800’s, the area of Central Park looked nothing like it does today: It was a barren land, far away from the main city, covered by rubble and rocks with mining quarries on it. 

The idea for the Park dates back to the mid 1800’s when city planners felt the need to create more spaces for urban dwellers to relax and get away from the hustle and bustle of the city. To make this vision come true, over 20,000 German and Irish immigrants worked to clear the land, drain the swamps, channel rivers and “built” new hills. But determined urban planners didn’t stop there: in their effort to create the park, they even evicted a small African American community, a settlement of free black people who were living on the land that had been allocated to the new Park.

All this to create a space where all people could re-connect with nature. Maybe not quite…

Back then, the Park was still far away from the rest of the city and only accessible to rich New Yorkers, who would arrive by carriages. In fact, the Park was especially designed for the high society and the difficulty reaching it (several kilometres walk) and rules like no walking on the lawns, no picnic and no concerts on Sundays (when most of the working class had their only free day) made sure to keep the “plebs” away.

Nowadays, as the city has crept up, this has fortunately changed and the park is full of life and welcomes everyone. There are nature walks and waterfalls; squirrels, exotic birds and bird watchers with gigantic lenses; football games and martial art practices. But my favourite part by far are the benches.

There are over 4,000 benches in Central Park (most of them adopted through the Adopt a Bench Programme for a mere USD 10,000) with beautiful inscriptions from lovers who are celebrating new beginnings together or saying good-bye. There’s few things more beautiful than strolling through the park and reading all the different plagues… some funny, some touching… some even brought me to tears. 

As I was strolling through the Park, relaxed, listening to the birds chirping and looking at the skyscrapers surrounding the park, I was thinking that on an island like Manhattan, not only buildings shoot towards the sky. Conservatively estimated, the area Central Park is situated on are worth at least USD 37billion – roughly the GDP of Serbia or Jordan. Realistically it’s worth a lot more than that…good think that a few things realy are priceless. 

 See the snake in the video?

Last but not least, some Central Park fun facts:

• More gunpowder was used to clear the area than was used at the Battle of Gettysburg during the American Civil War 
• More than 40 million people visit Central Park every year, making it the most visited urban park in the US 
• If you wanted to walk ever single path in Central Park, you’d have to walk over 93kms