Central Park was the first landscaped public park in the United States. Advocates of creating the park – primarily wealthy merchants and landowners – admired the public grounds of London and Paris and urged that New York needed a comparable facility to establish its international reputation. A public park, they argued, would offer their own families an attractive setting for carriage rides and provide working-class New Yorkers with a healthy alternative to the saloon. After three years of debate over the park site and cost, in 1853 the state legislature authorized the City of New York to use the power of eminent domain to acquire more than 700 acres of land in the center of Manhattan.
Let’s take a look at some of the numbers on this attractive New York City landmark:
1857 – The year park was established
1.600 – Number of residents evicted for park construction
843 – Current size in acres.
65.000.000 – Annual budget in $
40.000.000 – Number of visitior per year (2013)
58 – Lenght of all the paths combined (in miles)
26.000 – Number of trees in Central Park
9000 – Number of benches in park
1.700 – Number of American Elms in Central Park
36 – Number of bridges and arches in Central Park
21 – Playgrounds
7 – Ornamental fountains
125 – Drinking fountains
275 – Approximately number of migratory birds species
29 – Sculptures
180 – Approximately weight of Cleopatra’s Needle (in tons)
4 – Types of bedrock
7 – Lakes
4 – Mammals species
2 – Indoor restaurants
25 – Maximum speed on the Park Drives (in mph)
4 – Plazas
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