Today Michael Wyetzner of Michielli + Wyetzner Architects joins AD in New York as he returns to Central Park to explore the thousands of years of history found there. Although Central Park itself would not have existed 200 years ago, you can track the use of the land back 13,000 years. From ancient Native American trails to billion-year-old rocks, take an in-depth look at the thousands of years of history housed inside this iconic park.
Category
🛠️
LifestyleTranscript
00:00Just 200 years ago, Central Park didn't exist.
00:05But what you might not know is
00:07that you could still see evidence
00:09of 13,000 years of world history
00:12right here, just by taking a walk in the park.
00:15I'm Michael Weitzner, I'm an architect,
00:17and today we're going to be taking a walk through time
00:20in New York's Central Park.
00:23We're standing here at the Columbus Circle entrance
00:26to Central Park in New York City,
00:29where Broadway intersects 59th Street
00:31and Central Park West.
00:33This was formerly called Grand Circle
00:36and also just The Circle.
00:38This is the most famous entrance of the park,
00:41in part because of that connection to Broadway.
00:44But Broadway has actually been a thoroughfare in New York City
00:47long before Central Park existed.
00:49Long before Central Park existed.
00:51In fact, it goes back to before the city was called New York
00:54and even before it was called New Amsterdam.
00:56The native Lenape people living on this island
00:58traveled this very same route for generations,
01:01making this one of the busiest paths on the island
01:04for around 13,000 years.
01:06When early Dutch colonizers learned about it,
01:08they called it the One-Arch Giweok Trail,
01:10in reference to the tribe of Wappinger people
01:12who lived on the bank of the Hudson River.
01:15Today, Broadway's famous for many reasons.
01:17It is synonymous with theater,
01:19and it was the first street in New York City
01:21with electric street lamps.
01:22But for architects and city planners,
01:24one of its most important distinctions
01:26is the way it cuts across the street grid of Manhattan
01:29at a diagonal.
01:30But what might surprise you is that this portion of Broadway
01:33is one of the only roads in Manhattan
01:35that runs true north.
01:36Although Manhattan is often shown oriented vertically on maps,
01:39which gives the impression that it runs north and south,
01:42it's actually tilted off axis from due north
01:44by about 29 degrees.
01:46With our bearings, let's journey northeast into the park,
01:49back in time to the formation of the island of Manhattan itself.
01:58Behind me is Glenspan Arch,
02:00near the northern end of the park at 103rd Street.
02:03The stones that make up this arch
02:05are actually carved from the bedrock of Manhattan.
02:08Although most of the boulders in Central Park
02:10are Manhattan schist,
02:12which is around 450 million years old,
02:14Glenspan Arch is made from a type of stone called Fordham gneiss,
02:18which formed here over 1 billion years ago.
02:21These stones were shaped by hand with hammer and chisel
02:24into traditional voussoir,
02:26or wedge-shaped blocks that make up an arch.
02:29When you pass through this arch,
02:30built from stones that are over 1 billion years old,
02:33you feel as though you were crossing a portal
02:35into an entirely different world,
02:37back to a time before Manhattan was transformed
02:39into a gleaming metropolis of brick, steel, and glass.
02:43It's a perfect introduction to the north end of the park,
02:46which feels the most naturalistic
02:48and the most removed from the bustle and hustle of midtown Manhattan.
02:52Here you'll find the most picturesque waterfalls in the park.
02:55As you might know from our other video on Central Park,
02:57nearly all of its lakes and streams
02:59are fed by pipes carrying drinking water.
03:02But here, passing under the arch,
03:04is where you'll find the only natural water source
03:06that still exists in Central Park.
03:08It's called Montaigne's Rivulet,
03:10and it starts at a body of water called The Pool.
03:13It was named after a physician
03:15who owned most of the land in this area in the early 1600s,
03:19when New York was still New Amsterdam.
03:21This natural stream is mostly underground now,
03:23after much of Manhattan was infilled with earth
03:26to create more buildable lots.
03:28Montaigne's Rivulet originally flowed all the way to the East River,
03:31but today only this small portion remains.
03:34Also underneath this arch is what's known as The Grotto.
03:37The Grotto is a small artificial cave made to look natural,
03:40often with or near a water feature.
03:45This obelisk towering over my shoulder
03:47is much older than Central Park.
03:49In fact, it was carved about 3,500 years ago
03:52and more than 5,000 miles away in Heliopolis, Egypt.
03:56So how did it get here?
03:58This 220-ton artifact carved from a single piece of granite
04:02was actually a gift.
04:04It was given to the United States by Egypt in the 1870s
04:07as a diplomatic gesture.
04:09But this wasn't the first time the obelisk had been moved.
04:12Although it is called Cleopatra's Needle,
04:14it wasn't actually commissioned by Cleopatra.
04:16It was originally created for Pharaoh Thutmose III
04:20for the Temple of the Sun near modern-day Cairo.
04:232,000 years later, while under Roman rule,
04:26the temple was rediscovered as ruins,
04:29and the obelisk and its twin had been toppled over
04:32and eventually buried in the sand.
04:34The Romans dug it up and moved it to Alexandria
04:37on the north coast of Egypt to a new temple
04:39that was created by Cleopatra,
04:41hence the name Cleopatra's Needle.
04:43In fact, you can still see evidence from its Roman journey.
04:47The bronze crabs that support the obelisk at the base
04:50were forged by the Romans as a way to help it balance
04:53when they installed it at Cleopatra's temple.
04:55The crabs supporting this obelisk are actually replicas,
04:58and you can still see the originals on display in the museum.
05:02When this monument was moved to New York City,
05:04it took some serious engineering to get it
05:06across the Atlantic Ocean intact,
05:08and the Roebling Company, who had designed
05:10and built the Brooklyn Bridge, took on the job.
05:13After it arrived in Manhattan,
05:15a special temporary railroad was built
05:17to move it from the banks of the Hudson River
05:19to its current location in Central Park.
05:22The train trip took 35 days to cover just a few miles,
05:26because of a blizzard that briefly shut down the operation.
05:29Although there's nothing else like it in Central Park,
05:32or in the United States for that matter,
05:34it was actually part of a matching set.
05:36The other one was gifted to the United Kingdom
05:38and stands on the banks of the River Thames in London,
05:41where they decided to leave it
05:43instead of spending more money to bring it inland.
05:46Over my shoulder is what's known as the Block House,
05:49although it's not actually a house,
05:51but a fort built for the War of 1812.
05:53It was built in a hurry,
05:55because the British were going to attack again.
05:57But that never happened, and this fort was completed
06:00just two days before the war ended in 1814.
06:02So because it was built in such a hurry,
06:04and it was built by different groups,
06:06the stones don't match, and each group essentially
06:08brought their own building materials with them,
06:10which gives it this sort of motley, hodgepodge feel.
06:13It's one of the oldest surviving buildings in Manhattan,
06:15and the oldest in the park.
06:17And if you like the look of it,
06:19you have Vaux and Olmsted to thank.
06:21They preserved it, effectively, as an architectural folly,
06:24but it's a very modern or rustic structure,
06:26and it serves no purpose
06:28other than to give a sense of history.
06:30Because this is one of the highest points in Manhattan,
06:32it was strategically important.
06:34And along the ridge, there was a line of other forts
06:37like this one, including Fort Clinton,
06:39Nutter's Battery, and Fort Fish.
06:41This building over my shoulder is known as the Arsenal.
06:45Millard Fillmore, who would later become
06:47President of the United States,
06:49oversaw the construction of this building
06:51as a place to store arms
06:53for the New York State Militia.
06:55But that didn't last long.
06:57The state of New York seized the land underneath it
06:59for the new Central Park.
07:01And since then, the Arsenal has had many different uses.
07:04It was once the original home of the Museum of Natural History,
07:07where paleontologists reconstructed dinosaur skeletons
07:10in a studio on the upper floor.
07:12It also served as an art gallery
07:14until that moved to another location uptown.
07:16And it was also the original weather station in the park
07:19until that also moved to Belvedere Castle.
07:21Today, the Arsenal serves a civic
07:23rather than a militaristic function.
07:25It is now the headquarters of the New York City
07:27Department of Parks and Recreation,
07:29the Arsenal Gallery, the City Parks Foundation,
07:31the Historic House Trust,
07:33and the New York Wildlife Conservation Society.
07:36And the grounds around it are used as the Tisch Children's Zoo.
07:40There are still some clues of this building's military origins,
07:43one of which are the murals in the main lobby.
07:45These murals were created by artist Alan Solberg
07:48for the Works Progress Administration in the 1930s.
07:51Another hint that this was a military facility
07:54is the architecture itself.
07:56With its castle-like crenellations,
07:58it is very reminiscent of other military buildings in New York
08:01from the time period, including the armory on the Upper East Side.
08:04Another feature is the eagle and the stacked cannonballs
08:07above the main entranceway.
08:09The architect of this building, Martin Thompson,
08:11also designed a famous bank in the early 1800s
08:14whose façade is now on display
08:16inside the Metropolitan Museum of Art,
08:18which sits on Central Park land.
08:24Where we're standing is what's known as McGowan's Pass.
08:28We've already traveled an ancient waterway
08:31and an ancestral native path.
08:33Now let's take a walk on a road that was truly revolutionary.
08:37In the 17th and 18th century,
08:39Boston Post Road was the main artery of Manhattan.
08:42It ran all the way from the southern tip of the island
08:45north to Boston, and it got its name
08:47because it was the official route for the postal service,
08:50hence the term post.
08:52Here at the northern end of Central Park,
08:54Boston Post Road passed through a narrow ravine,
08:57which made it a very important location
08:59during the Revolutionary War.
09:01Paul Revere even carried a letter from Samuel Adams
09:04to bring news of the Boston Tea Party along this road.
09:07A few years later, the British stormed Manhattan in 1776,
09:11seemingly overpowering the Revolutionary soldiers
09:14and causing Washington to question
09:16whether they had lost the war.
09:18But as the British marched north towards Washington's headquarters
09:21at the Marsh-Jamel Mansion,
09:23which we covered in a previous video on Manhattan mansions,
09:26it was right here at McGowan's Pass
09:28that Washington's troops stopped the British advance
09:31and turned the tide of the war once again.
09:33Seven years later in 1784,
09:35the occupying British troops left the island of Manhattan
09:38on what is remembered as Evacuation Day,
09:41and George Washington led a victory march
09:43down Boston Post Road in celebration.
09:45McGowan's Pass is a great example
09:47of the preserved history in the park.
09:49But of course, many of the buildings and settlements
09:51on what would become park land did not survive,
09:54like the free black settlement of Senegal Village,
09:57an infamous example of eminent domain
09:59where an entire landowning community
10:01was forcibly displaced.
10:03Near the site was another community that predated the park,
10:06a convent known as Mount St. Vincent's,
10:08which was established in 1847
10:10by the Sisters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul.
10:13When the park was commissioned,
10:15their land too was claimed by eminent domain,
10:17and they moved to the Bronx,
10:19while the designers of the park, Vaux and Olmsted,
10:21used the convent as their headquarters during construction.
10:24It was also used as a hospital during the Civil War,
10:27and it was the sisters who had been displaced
10:29that came back to serve as nurses to the injured soldiers.
10:32Today, only a few foundations and a stone marker
10:35memorialize the fact that the convent was ever here.
10:40Central Park was designed with many small entrances
10:44as opposed to one singular grand entrance.
10:47This was meant to highlight the fact
10:49that the park was built for all the people of New York,
10:52an inclusive democratic space to be enjoyed by everybody,
10:55from politicians and bankers to factory workers and fishermen.
10:59And each of the original 20 entrances to the park
11:02were designated with a name
11:04honoring occupations or roles in society.
11:07This celebration of New Yorkers
11:09also included direct reference to the diversity of cultures
11:12and national origins of people in the city,
11:15with the Strangers' Gate at 106th Street
11:18making explicit reference to immigrants,
11:20which have always been a boon
11:22to the culture and industry of the city.
11:24The park's designers and commissioners
11:26considered naming the gates after other things,
11:29like military figures or diplomatic leaders.
11:31But ultimately, the decision to honor everyday people
11:34was a philosophical statement by Frederick Law Olmsted,
11:37who was a passionate abolitionist.
11:39In his view, naming the gates after everyday people
11:42of all backgrounds and occupations
11:44would highlight the free labor economy of the North
11:47in direct contrast to the enslaved workers
11:50of the Confederate South.
11:52In fact, in 1863, at the height of the Civil War,
11:55Vox and Olmsted even resigned in protest
11:57when the commissioners of the park
11:59tried to bring in Richard Morris Hunt, the famous architect,
12:02to create a grand gated entrance plaza to the park,
12:05a far cry from their egalitarian vision.
12:08But it was never built.
12:10Although this standoff happened in the mid-1800s,
12:12the names of many of these gates
12:14wouldn't actually be carved into the stone
12:16until the year 2000,
12:18when the Central Park Conservancy
12:20finally put into action
12:22the original vision of the park's designers.
12:25In the end, though, Richard Morris Hunt
12:27did get to build his entrance gate, sort of.
12:30Calvert Vox designed the original building
12:32for the Metropolitan Museum of Art,
12:34which sits within the park,
12:36but Richard Morris Hunt was later hired
12:38to build an addition to it.
12:40And when he did, his building completely blocked
12:42the view of Vox's from Fifth Avenue
12:44and also included a grand entrance
12:46built in a European style.
12:48So now when you enter the Met, in a sense,
12:50you're entering the park the way
12:52Richard Morris Hunt originally wanted you to.
12:54That's just a small slice of the history
12:56that you can reach out and touch inside of Central Park.
12:59What are other places you'd like to learn about?
13:01In the comments below.