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17 Things You Didn't Know About Central Park, NYC

Raksha Kulkarni

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Central Park is one of the most famous parks in the bustling city of New York. Open all year long, the park provides people with culture, fresh air, and exercising space, welcoming more than 42 million visitors annually.
Here are some astonishing facts about Central Park.
Central Park, whose plan got approved in 1853, is the first landscaped public park in US. The area was once filled with swamps, rocks, and infertile soil. But, thanks to thousands of laborers for how it looks today!
Central Park stretches across 843 acres and covers 3.5 square miles, including 26 baseball fields & 7 water bodies. It is larger than the principality of Monaco and the Vatican City.
The large boulders that can still be seen are evidence of history of Central Park. The whole area was covered by glaciers and the last of them was known as the Wisconsin Glacier.
Before Central Park was built, it was known as Seneca Village and about 1600 people resided there. The village was later destroyed in 1855.
Central Park was also known as the grassy Sheep Meadow as it was once filled with livestock, which grazed there from the 1860s until the years following the Great Depression. It is now a restaurant and is called the Tavern on the Green.
Built over 100 years ago, Central Park’s 57-horse carousel is one of the nation’s largest and oldest merry-go-rounds. It was found abandoned in an old trolley terminal in Coney Island.
Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux, designers of the Central Park, won the right to design in a public competition. Though the park has changed quite a lot, their core ideas have been kept intact.
The building of Central Park cost almost $7.39 million which was more than the cost that was used to build Alaska.
Almost half a million cubic yards of rock was blown up or dug out when Central Park was being built. It required more gunpowder than that used in the Battle of Gettysburg.
Central Park is the most filmed public park and location in the world, with over 500 films shot here. Enchanted, When Harry Met Sally, The Avengers, Serendipity, Home Alone 2 are some of the famous films shot in this park.
The Alice in Wonderland sculpture, out of the 29 sculptures inside Central Park, was designed to be interactive. The mushrooms are designed to serve as steps that allow children to climb to the rest of the sculpture.
There is only one straight road, known as The Mall, in the whole park that runs mid-park from 66th to 72nd streets. The other 58 miles of pedestrian roads are curving & built while taking care of nature.
A person can adopt a bench in Central Park since 1986, the price being $10,000! Donors can choose the location & write a 120-character inscription too.
The park is one of the best outdoor venues for concerts. It made history during Garth Brooks’ concert in 1997 when around 980,000 people attended.
Central Park got declared as a National Historic Landmark in 1963 and was designated a New York City Scenic Landmark in 1974.
Central Park has its own App, which helps visitors navigate through easily. The App shows maps and recommends areas of interest in more than 40 celebrity voices.
Last but not the least, almost 20,000 trees in Central Park help cancel out over 1 million miles of Greenhouse Gas Emissions per year.