https://www.gardenvisit.com/blog/parks-now/ Gardenvisit.com Tue, 13 Apr 2010 05:22:14 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.5.8 https://www.gardenvisit.com/blog/parks-now/#comment-2045 Tue, 13 Apr 2010 05:22:14 +0000 http://www.gardenvisit.com/blog/?p=4316#comment-2045 Even more amazing is the story of the creation of Central Park out of the near failure of the Comissioner’s Plan of New York of 1811 which “designated little open space”. By the 1840s it is said that “the neglect of an adequate city plan threatened to make the crowded city uninhabitable”. [ http://www.nycgovparks.org/sub_about/parks_history/historic_tour/history_oldest_parks.html ]

]]> https://www.gardenvisit.com/blog/parks-now/#comment-2044 Mon, 12 Apr 2010 15:44:24 +0000 http://www.gardenvisit.com/blog/?p=4316#comment-2044 The story of the restoration of Central Park is a dazzling example of making things happen. I believe the ingredients were: (1) individual drive (2) new funds, partly from the City but also raised from the wealthy folk who live near Central Park (3) the zero tolerance approach to New York’s policing made the city a much safer place – though New York’s jails were filled up and I guess they became much more dangerous places. My own belief is that most parks need resident groups to have a management role in parks. User Groups and Friends of the Park are not enough. Parks suffer when they are treated as as job creation schemes for municipal workers.

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