One hundred seventy years ago today, The Post published an editorial that would forever change the face of this city — and produce a jewel of urban planning.
The headline was: “A New Public Park.” In it, editor William Cullen Bryant bemoaned the lack of “an extensive pleasure ground for shade and recreation in these sultry afternoons, which we might reach without going out of town.”
All the great cities of Europe, Bryant noted, had extensive public grounds and gardens. “Commerce is devouring inch by inch the coast of the island,” he wrote, “and if we would rescue any part of it for health and recreation it must be done now.”
It took nearly a decade before the city acquired the land to make The Post’s vision a reality. Today the world knows it as Central Park.
The park is maintained by the Central Park Conservancy, a private group formed in the 1970s to rescue the park from the city’s neglect and mismanagement.
The conservancy provides 75 percent of Central Park’s $58 million annual budget. It has revitalized the park, just as the Prospect Park Alliance has done in Brooklyn.
In other words, it’s been a huge success.
Unfortunately, rather than looking for ways to replicate that success across other parks, a movement for “park equity” seems focused either on jacking up the budget for a city that has proved it cannot maintain parks or forcing wealthier conservancies to use their money to fund the poorer parks.
This anniversary reminds us that New Yorkers enjoy a beautiful, green oasis in the heart of our city because the private sector stepped in where the public sector failed.
Instead of looking to play Robin Hood by targeting successful parks, why not treat them as partners — and see what solutions and advice they might have for those less well off?