# How unique is Central Park? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [March 23, 2000, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-unique-is-central-park/9159 "2000-03-23T17:42:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![pluto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/f08c70/32.png) [@pluto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pluto)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2000, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-unique-is-central-park/9159/21 "2000-03-23T23:27:00Z")
> [@](#): > > Originally posted by Green Bean: > \*\*Not so, Pluto. Just a legend. > > Didn’t read my post, did ya? ;)\*\* Yes, I did read it and nothing there contradicted what I said. I did a search on the internet (greatly hampered by having almost no knowledge of the geography of NYC). I finally found a hint in Compton’s Encyclopedia that my memory was not entirely a UL: > [@](#): > > The crowded horizon is supported below by the durable Manhattan schist, or crystalline rock, whose strength has allowed builders to raise some of the world’s tallest structures. Outcroppings of this rock can be seen poking through the soil in Manhattan’s Central Park. The two greatest districts of tall buildings–the densely packed skyscrapers of the financial district in lower Manhattan and the slightly more eclectic towers of Midtown–coincide with the geologic layout of supporting rock. Note, however, that outcroppings of the schist are mentioned in Central Park itself. A further search on Manhattan schist found this: [http://moon.jrn.columbia.edu/NMW/1998/elective/students/NakedNY/Schist.html](http://moon.jrn.columbia.edu/NMW/1998/elective/students/NakedNY/Schist.html) They certainly didn’t create Central Park where it is because they knew they couldn’t build skyscrapers there. But it turns out it wasn’t one of the prime spots for skyscrapers, either. If it had been it might have been developed out of existence. I’ll take half-credit for my answer. ---
**Author:** ![waterj2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/858c86/32.png) [@waterj2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/waterj2)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2000, 11:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-unique-is-central-park/9159/22 "2000-03-23T23:30:00Z")
Olmstead designed many parks in his career, including a chain of 16(?) parks in Boston. Olmstead and Vaux also designed Prospect Park in Brooklyn, which I’ve read they preferred to Central Park. I have heard about the unsuitability of some areas in Manhattan for skyscraper building, although I’ve heard it as the bedrock being best in downtown and midtown(both south of Central Park), with the bad area in between, which would make sense if you’ve seen the skyline of New York. I believe that the area around and under Central Park is about middle of the road, hence the lack of huge skyscrapers alongside it. ---
**Author:** ![Andy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/aeb1de/32.png) [@Andy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2000, 12:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-unique-is-central-park/9159/23 "2000-03-24T00:36:00Z")
So, Green Bean, given what Pluto has written, are you going to rewrite your extensive report? 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Green\_Bean](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/green_bean/32/1760_2.png) [@Green\_Bean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Green_Bean)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2000, 1:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-unique-is-central-park/9159/24 "2000-03-24T01:30:00Z")
Nope, because skyscrapers did not exist until Central Park was finished. The land for Central Park was mostly purchased by 1857, and the official opening of the park was in 1876. There were no skyscrapers (buildings taller than 20 stories) until the 1890s. Until the passenger elevator was developed (1857), building of more than 4 or 5 stories were considered impractical. And it wasn’t until steel-frame construction became common beginning in the 1860s that buildings taller than 10-or-so stories were possible. Prior to refinements in Bessemer-process steel, buildings were usually supported by their walls. Masonry walls thick enough to support a building taller than 10 stories would be too thick to be practical. There were some cast-iron buildings built in the mid-nineteenth-century, but cast-iron is too brittle to support a very tall building. The truly tall buildings (more than 20 stories) that we think of as skyscrapers did not exist until the 1890s. (I guess it would be nitpicky to point out that the word “skyscraper” only came into use in the 1880s, and at that time, referred to buildings that were only 10 stories tall.) So, there you go. Central Park came before the skyscraper. And once CP was in place, nobody was going to try to build there. And you can definitely see the rock poking through the soil in CP. Calvert and Vaux designed the park to incorporate some of the larger outcroppings–easier than getting rid of them! Thanks for the info and the links Pluto. That link you included will be helpful to me. Next time you and the Plutinos are in NYC, I would love to take you on a walking tour of CP. -Bean, who is up to her eyeballs in newspapers from the 1850s. ---
**Author:** ![Ringo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/779978/32.png) [@Ringo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ringo)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2000, 2:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-unique-is-central-park/9159/25 "2000-03-24T02:39:00Z")
Thanks for a great report, Bean. Opus, I’m not in the building of huge buildings business, but I’ll note that here in Houston we’ve got _lots_ of skycrapers parked on sand and clay. ---
**Author:** ![Ringo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/779978/32.png) [@Ringo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ringo)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2000, 3:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-unique-is-central-park/9159/26 "2000-03-24T03:44:00Z")
Insert **pluto** for **Opus** in the above post. Sorry. ---
**Author:** ![mipsman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mipsman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mipsman)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2000, 3:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-unique-is-central-park/9159/27 "2000-03-24T03:44:00Z")
The Manhattan Schist is pretty much at ground level until you go south of 30th Street. The bedrock then plunges deep until you get to the Wall Street area where it is only about 50 feet down, easily reachable for a skyscraper foundation. Thus the bimodal distribution in the skyline. One of the first things I did on my initial trip to NYC was find the glacial striations carved in the CP bedrock as shown in the geo textbooks. Beatle, it has been said that Houston skyscrapers have to be made like bowling pins in order to float at the top of 2 miles of clay that has the shear strength of toothpaste. ---
**Author:** ![jdl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/4bbf92/32.png) [@jdl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jdl)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2000, 3:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-unique-is-central-park/9159/28 "2000-03-24T03:50:00Z")
That Olmstead dude also designed Montreal’s downtown park which sits on Mount Royal. Called simply ‘The Mountain’, this thing was designed by Olmstead in such a way that you can’t see downtown except at the top. I suspect Central Park is larger, but The Mountain is geographically far more interesting. ---
**Author:** ![Ringo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/779978/32.png) [@Ringo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ringo)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2000, 3:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-unique-is-central-park/9159/29 "2000-03-24T03:58:00Z")
**mipsman** said: > [@](#): > > Beatle, it has been said that Houston skyscrapers have to be made like bowling pins in order to float at the top of 2 miles of clay that has the shear strength of toothpaste. Well, frankly, it isn’t two miles, but it’s deep enough. Anyway, I missed the meaning of “made like bowling pins” - _qu’est-ce que ce?_ - hollow? or what? ---
**Author:** ![mipsman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mipsman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mipsman)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2000, 5:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-unique-is-central-park/9159/30 "2000-03-24T05:56:00Z")
Shaped like bowling pins, big fat wide foundations supporting a much narrower building. ---
**Author:** ![mipsman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mipsman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mipsman)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2000, 7:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-unique-is-central-park/9159/31 "2000-03-24T07:51:00Z")
Beatle, in Houston you have an over consolidated clay (Beaumont Clay) about 300 feet down that the skyscrapers use for support, but other than that I don’t think there is anything like bedrock until you hit basaltic crust. ---
**Author:** ![Omniscient](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omniscient/32/3290_2.png) [@Omniscient](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omniscient)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2000, 10:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-unique-is-central-park/9159/32 "2000-03-24T10:56:00Z")
I’d just add that in my travels, Chicago would probably be the most similar (and possibly more impressive) to Central park. As you’ve read Central park was a very carefully planned and mitigated venture with the goal of creating the wonderful place it has. So, the OPs assumption that the park has resisted innudation by development is backwards, the development is a result of the parks presence. This is not so in Chicago. While I’m not going to expend alot of time digging up names and links (I know I should for the teeming millions) I can attempt to explain Chicago to those unfamilar with it. Chicago is noted for its architecture, and massive development in a small area. Early notables like Daniel Burnham operated under the order that Chicago always maintain a open undeveloped lakefront (there is a famous quote that establishes this, but I’m not aware of it precisely) and they did so (I’m not aware if it was specifically legislated). This is a impressive ideal to uphold when one considers that virtually every urban coastline is clamored over by wealthy homeowners or filthy factories. The city maintains 20 miles of city park land in very nice condition buffering the massive skyline from the lake. While there are numerous stories of developers trying to uncroach on this land, the city for the most part has perservered in maintaining that park land. So one might see Chicago’s park is the complete opposite of New York’s park in the inspiration and implimentation. Both however have very similar results in providing a very wealthy and vital area in close proximity to these open areas. Being a Chicagoan I might lean towards the Chicago version being more impressive because of the lake’s added attractiveness to developers, where Central park is located in the least stereotypically valuable part of Manhattan. I would argue that most of the west coast cities can’t argue for the distinction in the context of a park thriving in a dense metropolitain area, San Fransisco being a likely exception. They are almost all very widespread and unencumbered by topography and revolutionary period boundries. The cities are typically more efficiently planned and the integration of parks would be a contemporary concept unlike the older cites who either retrofit he parks or maintained them by noble gesture or blind luck. The various European cities I visited have absolutely nothing remotely similar. One of the nice things about this country is still having abundant space. ---
**Author:** ![ookpik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/c68b51/32.png) [@ookpik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ookpik)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2000, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-unique-is-central-park/9159/33 "2000-03-24T17:37:00Z")
The park in Montreal is actually Mount Royal Park. ---
**Author:** ![Chef\_Troy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/85f322/32.png) [@Chef\_Troy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chef_Troy)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2000, 6:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-unique-is-central-park/9159/34 "2000-03-25T06:25:00Z")
> [@](#): > > Originally posted by Kid\_Gilligan: > \*\*How unique is Central Park among the large cities of the world? > > Just wondering. > \*\* I apologize for briefly hijacking this thread, but since this website is supposed to be fighting ignorance, here goes: The word _unique_ is a superlative and does not take modifiers. It is incorrect to ask how unique something is; either it is unique or it is not. You should have asked, “How _unusual_ is Central Park among the large cities of the world?” ## –Chef Troy, unofficial writing coach and picker of nits to the SDMB Live a Lush Life Da Chef ---
**Author:** ![NicePete](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ee7513/32.png) [@NicePete](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NicePete)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2000, 6:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-unique-is-central-park/9159/35 "2000-03-25T06:39:00Z")
Olmstead also designed the system of parks and parkways in Louisville. There are three large parks, each roughly 1000 acres. The parks are connected by “parkways” which are tree lined four lane roads with wide green medians. The parks are wonderful, although the largest, Cherokee Park, lost thousands of trees in 1973 when a tornado went through. * * * Plunging like stones from a slingshot on Mars. ---
**Author:** ![DVous\_Means](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9fc29f/32.png) [@DVous\_Means](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DVous_Means)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2000, 1:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-unique-is-central-park/9159/36 "2000-03-25T13:58:00Z")
I’m a bit late coming into this thread, but I’ll add my two cents worth anyway. Adelaide, capital of South Australia, population of about 1 million, is internationally renowned for the “green belt” of parkland that completely surrounds the square mile of the CBD, and the closest surburb to its north. Perth, capital of West Australia, population also about 1 million, has a large park adjacent to the CBD, alongside a river. I guess from all the responses to the original post that Central Park isn’t so unusual after all. * * * Knock softly but firmly, 'cause I like soft firm knockers… ---
**Author:** ![matt\_mcl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ab992/32.png) [@matt\_mcl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/matt_mcl)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2000, 7:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-unique-is-central-park/9159/37 "2000-03-25T19:06:00Z")
We Montrealers love our mountain. At any rate, the Old Port is a large park/recreation area immediately south of downtown and Lafontaine Park, which is fairly large but not as big as the Mountain, is just northeast of downtown. (It’s also immediately north of the Village, which is…useful.) ---
**Author:** ![Kyla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/eada6e/32.png) [@Kyla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kyla)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2000, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-unique-is-central-park/9159/38 "2000-03-25T21:33:00Z")
I’m not going to question Cecil’s accuracy, but I’ve always heard that Golden Gate Park is the largest _man-made_ park in the U.S. (world? - probably not, I don’t know). Like in Manhattan, that land is worth a bundle of money, but having a gigantic park in what’s otherwise mostly a lot of concrete and asphalt is really a relief. It took a lot of effort to build it, too, because it runs right up to the Pacific, and if it weren’t for extensive landscaping, it would have turned into sand dunes long ago. Also, how many other cities in the U.S. have a herd of buffalos? ---
**Author:** ![Doobieous](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/da6949/32.png) [@Doobieous](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doobieous)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2000, 12:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-unique-is-central-park/9159/39 "2000-03-26T00:52:00Z")
Here’s some info on Golden Gate National Park: > [@](#): > > The Golden Gate National Recreation Area (GGNRA)is the largest urban national park in the world. The total park area is 76,500 acres of land and water. Approximately 28 miles of coastline lie within its boundaries. It is nearly two and one-half times the size of San Francisco. A quick look at a map of San Francisco reveals some of the things Golden Gate park has (the parkland within the developed urban area, disregarding the parkland at the coast): - a buffalo preserve - 2 stadiums - equestrian center - many small lakes - the De Young, and Asian museums - Strybing Arboretum - Japanese tea garden - Academy of Sciences - Steinhart Aquarium - Morrison Planetarium - Music Concourse ## Much of the coastal part of the park is untouched, and there are several beaches on the north and west sides of the city. Dominus ex equo descendit, villamque intravit. ---
**Author:** ![Omniscient](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omniscient/32/3290_2.png) [@Omniscient](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omniscient)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2000, 2:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-unique-is-central-park/9159/40 "2000-03-26T02:45:00Z")
Doob, correct me if I’m wrong, but the Golden Gate Park is across the Golden Gate (the waterway) from the center of the city. The park lies most entirely on the Marin peninsula which may or may not even be included in the San Fran city limits. While the park is indeed surrounded by the metro area, they would more clearly be suburbs, and not nearly as monumental a undertaking as a large park in the heart of the metro business district of the city. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-unique-is-central-park/9159.md?page=1)