¶ … Central Park (New York) and Mohawk Park (Tulsa, Oklahoma)
Municipal parks have a long history, and the importance of these invaluable green and open spaces to the people who live around them cannot be overstated. Perhaps the best-known pubic park in the United States is New York City's Central Park that provides the city's citizenry with an enormous green space in the middle of a concrete jungle. Although lesser known, Tulsa, Oklahoma's Mohawk Park is the third-largest municipal park in the country and provides a wide range of resources for the citizens of Tulsa and its surrounding communities. This paper provides a review of the relevant literature to identify the designs of these two municipal parks and their use of space for their patrons. A summary of the research and important findings concerning New York's Central Park and Tulsa's Mohawk Park are presented in the conclusion.
Review and Discussion
New York's Central Park
The original specifications for New York's Central Park may appear fairly modest by modern standards, especially given the city's meteoric growth since the park was first envisioned more than a century and a half ago. In this regard, Carr reports that, "In the fall of 1857, the Central Park commissioners announced a design competition, and in the program statement they specified an array of outdoor spaces and facilities that indicated some of the activities foreseen for the park."
The activities foreseen by the Central Park commissioners included a parade ground, playgrounds, an exhibition hall, a flower garden, a large fountain, a prospect tower, and a skating pond.
The winning design for New York's 840-acre Central Park was submitted by Frederick Law Olmsted (1822-1903) who, in collaboration with Calvert Vaux (1824-1895), crafted the designs for their famous Greensward plan for what would later become Central Park.
The Greensward plan was approved by New York City commissioners in April 1858 and Vaux and Olmsted were contracted to implement the plans.
According to Kowsky, "Their association...
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