Central Park, An American Masterpiece: A Comprehensive History of the Nation's First Urban Park

"Central Park, America's first public park, is a paragon of nineteenth-century landscape design and one of the world's great urban spaces. Marking the park's 150th anniversary, Central Park, An American Masterpiece is an illustrated history that celebrates the splendor and significance of this national treasure. The park has just undergone a nearly three-hundred-million-dollar restoration that took more than two decades, and it has never looked more beautiful." "Author Sara Cedar Miller, the official historian and photographer for the Central Park Conservancy, draws on extensive research to tell the captivating story of the park's creation and provides surprising and fresh insights into its design. Fascinating period views and original plans and drawings - many previously unpublished, including two competition entries thought to be lost - are complemented by Miller's breathtaking photographs, which reveal the rejuvenated park in all its glory." Placing Central Park in the context of nineteenth-century American art and social history, Miller's text illuminates the roles of its stellar designers Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux, explores how the original plan was modified in the course of construction, and traces the evolution of the park over the decades. She also gives long overdue credit to the designers' associate Jacob Wrey Mould, whose extraordinary sculptural program for Bethesda Terrace is an artistic achievement of the highest order.