54 The Environmental Debate
numbers of people, desirous of moving for recrea-
tion among scenes that should be gratifying to their
taste or imagination.
In the present century, not only have the
old parks been thus maintained, but many new
parks have been formed with these purposes
exclusively in view, especially within and adjoin-
ing considerable towns and it is upon our knowl-
edge of these latter that our simplest conception
of a town park is founded. It is from experience
in these that all our ideas of parks must spring.B. From a Letter to H. G. Stebbins
(president of the New York City
Department of Parks), 1872
[O]ne of the considerations [affecting the
design of Central Park] was suggested by the
frightful increase of mortality among very young
children which annually occurs in this city about
mid-summer; the number of deaths of infants,
notwithstanding so many are taken out of town,
often being double as many in a day about the
middle of July as in any day of several previous
months. The causes act in part directly upon the
children, but largely, also indirectly, by inducing
nervous irritation with nursing mothers.
A visit to the country offers the surest means
of escaping the danger, and, in incipient stages, the
best means of cure of the special disorders in which
the danger lies. To most mothers, however, this is
impracticable, and the best that can be done is to
spend an occasional day or part of a day on the
Park. It has been for some years a growing practice
with physicians to advise this course.A. From a Report to Commissioners
of Prospect Park, 1866
The word park has different significations, but
that in which we are now interested has grown out
of its application centuries ago, simply to hunting
grounds; the choicest lands for hunting grounds
being those in which the beasts of the chase were
most happy, and consequently most abundant,
sites were chosen for them, in which it was easy for
animals to turn from rich herbage to clear water,
from warm sunlight to cool shade; that is to say, by
preference, ranges of well-watered dale-land, bro-
ken by open groves and dotted with spreading trees,
undulating in surface, but not rugged. Gay parties
of pleasure occasionally met in these parks, and
when these meetings occurred the enjoyment oth-
erwise obtained in them was found to be increased.
Hence, instead of mere hunting lodges and hovels
for game-keepers, extensive buildings and other
accommodations, having frequently a festive char-
acter, were after a time provided within their enclo-
sures. Then it was found that people took pleasure
in them without regard to the attractions of the
chase, or of conversation and this pleasure was per-
ceived to be, in some degree, related to their scenery,
and in some degree to the peculiar manner of asso-
ciation which occurred in them; and this was also
found to be independent of intellectual gifts, tran-
quilizing and restorative to the powers most tasked
in ordinary social duties, and stimulating only in
a healthy and recreative way to the imagination.
Hence, after a time, parks began to be regarded
and to be maintained with reference, more than
any thing else, to the convenient accommodation of
DOCUMENT 48: Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux on Creating
Parks to Serve the Public (1866, 1872)
Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux developed their two great New York City parks, Central Park in
Manhattan and Prospect Park in Brooklyn, to fulfill a democratic vision of park space accessible to all classes
of people, based in part on a belief that contact with nature has an uplifting effect on the human spirit.
Both Olmsted and Vaux had visited Green-wood Cemetery in Brooklyn in 1852 and were very much aware
of its popularity among a broad cross-section of the city’s population. In the first selection, Olmsted and
Vaux justify their approach to park design on the basis of their knowledge of European parks. In the second
selection, they detail how they went about translating the European idea of a park into one suitable for a great
city in a democratic nation.