ED GLAESER: We're here in Central Park, which is one of the world's great urban spaces.
Open squares had existed in cities for a millenia, but they were primarily
places of commerce, not sylvan refuges from the strife of city life.
After all,
nature was seen as something dangerous, looming menacingly beyond city walls.
It was only in the 19th century, when romantic poets like Keats and
Wordsworth began to panegyrize nature.
Cities filled up with migrants from farms who presumably missed a little bit of
grass and a few flowers.
The downsides to extreme density, the fetid water,
the unclean air, the mountains of human refuge,
made the idea of a sylvan retreat even more appealing by the mid-19th century.
New York City's 1811 grid plan gave little space for open parks, only the parade.
Now Madison Square Park was marked on a plan as being a clearly visible
urban park.
William Cullen Bryant, the editor of the New York Evening Post, took up the call for
a larger park here in New York.
Bryant had been born in a log cabin in Massachusetts, but he came to New York and
enjoyed huge success as the editor of the New York Evening Post.
He was joined by Andrew Jackson Downing,
the founding father of landscape architecture in America and
together, they waged a campaign for a greener, cleaner New York.
Their campaign brings forth legislation in 1853 which sets aside
700 acres for a park.
It also establishes a park commission.
So much of the great 19th century infrastructure in New York
was built by state-appointed commissions, not local government.
The Croton Aqueduct, a state commission.
The Erie Canal, a state commission.
Central Park, a state commission.
The park commission held a contest to come up with the best plan for
a park that would enrich the lives of ordinary New Yorkers.
It was won by two young men, Calvert Vaux and Frederick Law Olmsted.
Vaux had been a partner in Downing's office.
Olmsted had no experience in landscape architecture.
He'd been a journalist, whose writings on the antebellum south
still contained some of the most vivid descriptions of that slave economy.
Together, they designed a green swathed masterpiece,
a people's park that would be open to all.
They eschewed vast marble arches that would bar the entrance for the poor.
Instead, they have simple, easy entryways that welcome in anyone.
And they filled their park with marvels like this pond,
which in the summer is filled with boats that bob up and down.
There are 36 bridges designed by Calvert Vaux himself throughout the park.
There's a sheep's meadow where sheep themselves gamboled on
the green until 1934.
There's a castle, the Belvedere that rises out of the mists.
It's not even short on the attempts to impress civic values.
It's filled with statues of 19th century icons like Sir Walter Scott and
William Shakespeare.
Of course, the park does create challenges, most importantly,
maintenance and programming.
All of this green space and
all of this humanity can create a mess, the park can easily get run down.
So over the course of the late 19th and early 20th centuries,
when Tammany Hall had little use for a park that abutted the buildings that were
occupied by their wealthy political enemies, the park decayed.
It was only in 1933, when the reforming mayor Fiorello La Guardia was elected
that the park acquired a new life.
He appointed the redoubtable Robert Moses who took the park firmly in hand.
Moses is responsible for much of the park, as indeed he is responsible for much of
New York City's infrastructure, but he's particularly associated with the zoo.
Central Park had had animals since 1859 when private donors started a menagerie.
But it's really Moses who gave the zoo its modern form,
a form that has delighted New York's children for generations.
I particularly treasured the Delacorte Clock Tower that was only built in 1965,
where the animals dance around to the sound of the chimes.
The park, again,
suffered a decay in 60s and 70s when New York's crime got out of control.
As a kid, I always felt that this was a place of danger,
at least apart from the prime visiting hours on weekends.
When I had to commute through the park during a transit strike, I talked loudly
to myself, in the hopes that apparent insanity would deter would be muggers.
The famed jogger case is a particularly notorious example
of crime in Central Park.
Of course, the park did become safe again as the city became safe, and
now thousands of joggers go through the park daily enjoying its pleasures.
Programming is the other challenge, this great urban space calls for
humanity to use it well.
Perhaps the most important entrepreneur in that regard was Joseph Papp who in
the 1960s began his Shakespeare in the Park, which brought some of the world's
greatest actors, right here to the park, to performances that were free.
I have fond memories of watching Kevin Kline in Henry the 5th there,
40 years ago.
This park is an urban marvel, and it is a tribute, both to the vision of Vaux and
Olmsted and to the value of having green space within the city.
It is also a tribute to the generosity of New York's philanthropists who have
help to improve and maintain the park over the years.
There are legitimate public policy questions about Central Park.
Is it too large?
Would it be better if it were carved into more smaller parks and
spread more evenly throughout the city?
But while you can ask those questions,
there's no doubt that this park is an absolute treasure for New York, and
a model of what truly beautiful urban space can be.