"Plant spacious parks in your cities, and unloose their gates...

August 14, 2018 8:50 AM

...as wide as the gates of morning to the whole people." Frederick Law Olmstead, most well-known for designing Central Park, also designed many other parks across the U.S. And now the Library of Congress has digitized his papers.

The collection includes around 24,000 items and 47,000 images and contains "examples of his letters and diary notations, journalism and articles, travel literature, investigative work in the pre-Emancipation South, planning documents and reports, speeches, book manuscripts, memoir material, records and reports."

posted by brookeb (8 comments total)

Years ago there was an exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art that dealt with something like "American Victorian-era views of nature" or something like that; whatever it was, it dealt with depictions of nature in American art at about Olmstead's time. I was wandering through the exhibit hall, one that was located in the back of the building facing into the park, and found myself wandering past a picture window - and then I noticed that an exhibition label had been placed next to the window, and that the exhibit was effectively declaring the whole of Central Park to be a part of the exhibit. (Given the exhibit itself, it made sense.)

When I worked at the IRC I once had the privilege of leading five of our international staff on an afternoon's sightseeing tour of the city; the IRC gives an annual acknowledgement to four or five of its staff members around the world who've gone above and beyond the call of duty, part of which involves bringing them to New York for meetings with the head honchos and the board of directors, exploring the city, meeting with the head office to advocate for their field office, yadda yadda. So I was leading a couple guys from Jordan, a woman from Kenya and a woman from Congo around some of the highlights of the city.

We got to Central Park and I gave them a little potted history lecture of the park before we went in ("this used to be all city blocks, but then was turned into a park and was all created by a designer named Frederick Law Olmstead, so all the hills and ponds you see were man-made....") Then we went in and started meandering through the paths, everyone oohing and ahing at the various things. But after about 20 minutes, the woman from Congo accosted me; she'd noticed all the statues to various generals and politicians and such, and she asked me "where's the monument to Mr. Olmstead?" There were all these other dudes with statues - surely the guy who designed the park deserved a statue, she insisted.

I tried to say something like "the park itself is his monument!" but she didn't buy it. I kinda think she had a point.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 9:05 AM on August 14, 2018 [6 favorites]

This year, both Central Park and Prospect Park got a little closer to Olmsted's original vision when they were made permanently car-free. This article is from before the Central Park car ban and so mostly discusses Prospect Park, but it has some great reflections on the parks and what they mean to New York.

Also this great snippet, which Brooklyn-based urbanists can use to dunk on Manhattanites:

Brooklyn’s signature park was to be an improvement over its Manhattan counterpart, Central Park, which Olmsted felt had been tarnished by a corrupt, incompetent, and cheap oversight committee. Prospect Park was the duo’s chance to get it right. “I should like to show you what I really am,” Olmsted wrote to Brooklyn’s authorities in an epic example of shit-talking one’s former employer, “and could do…with a moderate degree of freedom from the necessity of accommodating myself to infernal scoundrels.”
posted by showbiz_liz at 9:19 AM on August 14, 2018 [3 favorites]

The piedmont cemetery is truly wonderful. Everyone in the bay area should visit at least once, if only to photograph your album cover.
https://www.mountainviewcemetery.org/friends/historical-figures/frederick-law-olmsted/
posted by poe at 9:39 AM on August 14, 2018 [1 favorite]

I visited the Biltmore Estate (aka, the Vanderbilts' 8,000-acre paradise in Asheville, NC) years ago for a forestry conference. I was delighted to find out that Olmsted was the original landscape designer for that property, and he hired a young Gifford Pinchot to create plans for the estate's forests. Not only did Olmsted go on to design Central Park and become generally known as the father of landscape architecture in the U.S., but Pinchot went on to become the first chief of the U.S. Forest Service. I wonder if all early Vanderbilt hires went on to such legendary careers?
posted by hessie at 10:17 AM on August 14, 2018 [2 favorites]

The Frederick Law Olmsted National Historic Site in Brookline, MA is an interesting place for a short visit. You can see some of the drawings made by his architects, some business records of the firm, and other artifacts in the studios where his architects worked. We visited there one rainy afternoon years ago and enjoyed it a lot.
posted by briank at 10:24 AM on August 14, 2018

I noticed that an exhibition label had been placed next to the window, and that the exhibit was effectively declaring the whole of Central Park to be a part of the exhibit.

Heh. That's pretty clever, and indeed appropriate!
posted by tavella at 12:17 PM on August 14, 2018

Olmsted did Biltmore as one of his last projects. Central Park was back in 1858; Biltmore was started 30 years later.
posted by sutt at 12:24 PM on August 14, 2018

"Also this great snippet, which Brooklyn-based urbanists can use to dunk on Manhattanites:

Brooklyn’s signature park was to be an improvement over its Manhattan counterpart, Central Park, which Olmsted felt had been tarnished by a corrupt, incompetent, and cheap oversight committee. Prospect Park was the duo’s chance to get it right. “I should like to show you what I really am,” Olmsted wrote to Brooklyn’s authorities in an epic example of shit-talking one’s former employer, “and could do…with a moderate degree of freedom from the necessity of accommodating myself to infernal scoundrels.”"

I had no idea there were other parks in NYC, or at least, other big ones. Then it again it always blows my mind when I see pictures of regular houses in NYC, just seems like the entire thing is all big buildings and apartments and such, the idea of someone renting a house with a lawn just seems to clash with the cultural and media projections of NYC. Anyway, I love that his most famous park was unsatisfactory to him, that's the way it often goes with various artists and designers. Everyone knows that feeling when someone is complimenting work you know to be subpar to your standards.
posted by GoblinHoney at 3:07 PM on August 16, 2018