The Plan Behind the Park

Fredrick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux designed Central Park to offer a diversity of views. The Park's historian, Sara Cedar Miller, has described a visit to the Park as similar to a trip through a gallery of Hudson River School landscape paintings. The Park is designed to encourage wandering and visual cues, like arches and clearings, are used to direct a visitor's gaze from one view to the next. Though the Park's landscapes are diverse, they can be grouped into three basic types: pastoral, formal and picturesque.

The Park's designers thought that a pure escape from city life required a pastoral landscape: a broad swath of lawn or water, intended to calm the mind with vast, tranquil views. "Greensward," the name of the plan Olmsted and Vaux submitted to the Park design contest, actually refers to a large lawn dotted with green trees. Sheep Meadow is an example, its lawn mirroring its aquatic counterpart, the Lake, to the north. Sheep Meadow was once literally pastoral when it was home to its own flock of sheep. In 1934, Parks Commissioner Robert Moses had the sheep moved to Prospect Park when their fold was replaced by a restaurant, Tavern on the Green.

Just east of Sheep Meadow is the Mall. With its linear walkway lined by quadruple rows of American elm trees, the Mall is an exemplary formal landscape. The historic parks of Europe were commonly arranged in grids and straight lines, suitable for those who wished to see and be seen in their fashionable dress. Vaux and Olmsted included the Mall as the only straight path in their Greensward plan, as they knew a formal element would appeal to the public's gregarious nature. The Mall still offers a great opportunity for outdoor socializing, though Victorian dress is optional.

In the 19th century, Belvedere Castle was visible from the Mall through the young trees of the Ramble, and the sight of the castle drew visitors into the picturesque landscape of the Park's woodland heart. Though it was carefully designed and constructed just like the rest of the Park, the Ramble appears natural and random in order to appeal to the playful curiosity of the visitor. The winding paths found throughout the whole Park become even more serpentine and dense in the Park's woodlands, making every turn a surprise. The area of the Ramble was naturally hilly, and barren rocks were covered with trees and plants in order to accomplish this rustic effect.

Olmsted and Vaux achieved a remarkable unity between the different elements of Central Park, allowing the visitor to travel seamlessly between immersive picturesque woods, pastoral fields and formal promenades. With cross-Park traffic passing discreetly by on the over- and underpasses of the Park's transverse roads, even busy traffic can't interrupt the Park's tranquility. The Conservancy is proud to restore, manage and enhance every variety of landscape in the Park.

To learn more about the design behind the Park's landscapes, take one of our free volunteer-led Art of the Park tours or read Seeing Central Park by Sara Cedar Miller.