New York as Paradise with Barry Lewis April 16, 2009

New York as Paradise: 1860s to 1920s
Barry Lewis, architectural historian

During the nineteenth century, long before the current craze for “green”, Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux, designers of Central Park, sought to thread our cities with greenbelts, parks, and garden suburbs that would help civilize them by bringing them into harmony with nature. These principles were later applied to both privately built city neighborhoods and utopian experiments. Communities served by mass transit were built with gardens, sports facilities, clubhouses, and walk-to-shopping “main streets”. The series explores the greening of Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Queens, including Forest Hills, Jackson Heights, and Sunnyside Gardens.

This week’s topic:

April 16
Olmsted and Vaux: Parks, Parkways, and Garden Suburbs, 1860–90

This series is supported by the Mrs. Joseph H. King Fund.

Official Website: http://www.metmuseum.org/tickets