1.
New York City
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The City of New York, often called New York City or simply New York, is the most populous city in the United States. With an estimated 2015 population of 8,550,405 distributed over an area of about 302.6 square miles. Located at the tip of the state of New York. Home to the headquarters of the United Nations, New York is an important center for international diplomacy and has described as the cultural and financial capital of the world. Situated on one of the worlds largest natural harbors, New York City consists of five boroughs, the five boroughs – Brooklyn, Queens, Manhattan, The Bronx, and Staten Island – were consolidated into a single city in 1898. In 2013, the MSA produced a gross metropolitan product of nearly US$1.39 trillion, in 2012, the CSA generated a GMP of over US$1.55 trillion. NYCs MSA and CSA GDP are higher than all but 11 and 12 countries, New York City traces its origin to its 1624 founding in Lower Manhattan as a trading post by colonists of the Dutch Republic and was named New Amsterdam in 1626. The city and its surroundings came under English control in 1664 and were renamed New York after King Charles II of England granted the lands to his brother, New York served as the capital of the United States from 1785 until 1790. It has been the countrys largest city since 1790, the Statue of Liberty greeted millions of immigrants as they came to the Americas by ship in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and is a symbol of the United States and its democracy. In the 21st century, New York has emerged as a node of creativity and entrepreneurship, social tolerance. Several sources have ranked New York the most photographed city in the world, the names of many of the citys bridges, tapered skyscrapers, and parks are known around the world. Manhattans real estate market is among the most expensive in the world, Manhattans Chinatown incorporates the highest concentration of Chinese people in the Western Hemisphere, with multiple signature Chinatowns developing across the city. Providing continuous 24/7 service, the New York City Subway is one of the most extensive metro systems worldwide, with 472 stations in operation. Over 120 colleges and universities are located in New York City, including Columbia University, New York University, and Rockefeller University, during the Wisconsinan glaciation, the New York City region was situated at the edge of a large ice sheet over 1,000 feet in depth. The ice sheet scraped away large amounts of soil, leaving the bedrock that serves as the foundation for much of New York City today. Later on, movement of the ice sheet would contribute to the separation of what are now Long Island and Staten Island. The first documented visit by a European was in 1524 by Giovanni da Verrazzano, a Florentine explorer in the service of the French crown and he claimed the area for France and named it Nouvelle Angoulême. Heavy ice kept him from further exploration, and he returned to Spain in August and he proceeded to sail up what the Dutch would name the North River, named first by Hudson as the Mauritius after Maurice, Prince of Orange
2.
Government of New York City
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The government of New York City, headquartered at New York City Hall in Lower Manhattan, is organized under the New York City Charter and provides for a strong mayor-council system. The mayor is elected to a term and is responsible for the administration of city government. The New York City Council is a body consisting of 51 members, each elected from a geographic district. All elected officials are limited to a two consecutive-term limit, the court system consists of two city courts and three state courts. New York City government employs 325,000 people, more than any city in the United States and more than any U. S. state. However, each county retains its own district attorney to prosecute crimes, three main public-library systems represent the citys five boroughs, namely Brooklyn Public Library, New York Public Library, and Queens Public Library. The executive branch of New York City consists of the Mayor, the Mayor also appoints several deputy mayors to head major offices within the executive branch of the city government. The City Record is the journal published each weekday containing legal notices produced by city agencies. The mayor is elected by popular vote for a four-year term. Along with the mayor, the Public Advocate and the Comptroller are the only three directly elected officials in New York City. The Public Advocate is a member of the Council, the Public Advocate stands first in line of succession to the mayoralty. The Comptroller stands second, after the Public Advocate, in the line to succeed a mayor who has become unable to serve, legislative power in the City of New York is vested in the New York City Council. The New York State Constitution empowers local governments to local laws in addition to ordinances, resolutions, rules. The Council is a body consisting of 51 Council members. The Speaker of the Council, selected by the 51 Council members, is considered the second most powerful post in New York Citys government after the Mayor. Bills passed by a majority are sent to the mayor. If the mayor vetoes a bill, the Council has 30 days to override the veto by a majority vote. The codified local laws of New York City are contained in the New York City Administrative Code, the Council has several committees with oversight of various functions of the city government
3.
Boroughs of New York City
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New York City, in the U. S. state of New York, is composed of five county-level administrative entities called boroughs. They are Manhattan, the Bronx, Queens, Brooklyn, each borough is coextensive with a county of New York State. The county governments were dissolved when New York City consolidated in 1898, along all city, town. The term borough was adopted to describe a form of administration for each of the five fundamental constituent parts of the newly consolidated city in 1898. Under the 1898 City Charter adopted by the New York State Legislature, the term is also used by politicians to counter a frequent focus on Manhattan and thereby to place all five boroughs on equal footing. In the same vein, the outer boroughs refers to all of the boroughs excluding Manhattan. All of the boroughs were created in 1898 during consolidation, when the current boundaries were established. Ultimately in 1914, the present-day separate Bronx County became the last county to be created in the State of New York, the borough of Queens consists of what formerly was only the western part of a then-larger Queens County. The borough of Staten Island was officially the borough of Richmond until the name was changed in 1975 to reflect its common appellation, there are hundreds of distinct neighborhoods throughout the five boroughs of New York City, many with a definable history and character to call their own. Manhattan is the geographically smallest and most densely populated borough and is home to Central Park and most of the citys skyscrapers. Manhattans population density of 72,033 people per mile in 2015 makes it the highest of any county in the United States. Manhattan is often described as the financial and cultural center of the world, most of the borough is situated on Manhattan Island, at the mouth of the Hudson River. Manhattan Island is loosely divided into Lower, Midtown, and Uptown regions, Uptown Manhattan is divided by Central Park into the Upper East Side and the Upper West Side, and above the park is Harlem. The borough also includes a neighborhood on the United States mainland. New York Citys remaining four boroughs are collectively referred to as the outer boroughs, Brooklyn, on the western tip of Long Island, is the citys most populous borough. Brooklyn is known for its cultural, social, and ethnic diversity, an independent art scene, distinct neighborhoods, downtown Brooklyn is the only central core neighborhood in the outer boroughs. The borough has a long beachfront shoreline including Coney Island, established in the 1870s as one of the earliest amusement grounds in the country, marine Park and Prospect Park are the two largest parks in Brooklyn. Historically a collection of towns and villages founded by the Dutch
4.
Playground
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A playground, playpark, or play area is a place specifically designed to enable children to play there. While a playground is designed for children, some target other age groups. Berlins Preußenpark for example is designed for people aged 70 or higher, a playground might exclude children below a certain age. Common in modern playgrounds are play structures that many different pieces of equipment. Playgrounds often also have facilities for playing games of adult sports, such as a baseball diamond, a skating arena. In some parts of the United States, the term tot lot may be used, a type of playground called a playscape is designed to provide a safe environment for play in a natural setting. Through history, children played in their villages and neighbourhoods, especially in the streets, in the 19th century, developmental psychologists such as Friedrich Fröbel proposed playgrounds as a developmental aid, or to imbue children with a sense of fair play and good manners. In Germany, a few playgrounds were erected in connection to schools, the Outdoor Recreation League provided funds to erect playgrounds on parkland, especially following the 1901 publication of a report on numbers of children being run down by cars in New York City. Interventionist programs such as by the child savers sought to move children into controlled areas to limit delinquency, one of the first playgrounds in the United States was built in San Franciscos Golden Gate Park in 1887. In 1906 the Playground Association of America was founded and a year later Luther Gulick became president and it later became the National Recreation Association and then the National Recreation and Park Association. Neither do small back yards nor ornamental grass plots meet the needs of any, older children who would play vigorous games must have places especially set aside for them, and, since play is a fundamental need, playgrounds should be provided for every child as much as schools. This means that they must be distributed over the cities in such a way as to be walking distance of every boy and girl. Playgrounds were a part of urban culture in the USSR. In the 1970s and 1980s, there were playgrounds in almost every park in many Soviet cities, Playground apparatus was reasonably standard all over the country, most of them consisted of metallic bars with relatively few wooden parts, and were manufactured in state-owned factories. Some of the most common constructions were the carousel, sphere, seesaw, rocket, bridge, Playground design is influenced by the intended purpose and audience. Separate play areas might be offered to accommodate very young children, single, large, open parks tend to not to be used by older schoolgirls or less aggressive children, because there is little opportunity for them to escape more aggressive children. By contrast, a park that offers multiple play areas is used equally by boys, professionals recognize that the social skills that children develop on the playground often become lifelong skill sets that are carried forward into their adulthood. Independent research concludes that playgrounds are among the most important environments for children outside the home, most forms of play are essential for healthy development, but free, spontaneous play—the kind that occurs on playgrounds—is the most beneficial type of play
5.
Tennis court
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A tennis court is the venue where the sport of tennis is played. It is a rectangular surface with a low net stretched across the center. The same surface can be used to play doubles and singles matches. A variety of surfaces can be used to create a tennis court, Tennis is played on a rectangular flat surface, usually of grass, clay or hard material. The dimensions of a court are defined and regulated by the International Tennis Federation governing body and are written down in the annual Rules of Tennis document. The court is 78 feet long and its width is 27 feet for singles matches and 36 feet for doubles matches. The service line is 21 feet from the net, additional clear space around the court is needed in order for players to reach overrun balls for a total of 60 feet wide and 120 feet long. A net is stretched across the width of the court, parallel with the baselines. The net is 3 feet 6 inches high at the posts, the net posts are 3 feet outside the doubles court on each side or, for a singles net,3 feet outside the singles court on each side. Tennis is played on a variety of surfaces and each surface has its own characteristics which affect the style of the game. There are four types of courts depending on the materials used for the court surface, clay courts, hard courts, grass courts. The Australian Open switched to hard courts in 1988 and in its years the French championship alternated between clay and sand/rubble courts. ITF uses the classification for tennis court surface types, Clay courts are made of crushed shale, stone. The French Open is the only Grand Slam tournament to use clay courts, Clay courts slow down the ball and produce a high bounce in comparison to grass courts or hard courts. For this reason, the court takes away many of the advantages of big serves. Clay courts are cheaper to construct than other types of tennis courts, Clay courts need to be rolled to preserve flatness. The clays water content must be balanced, green courts generally require the courts to be sloped to allow water run-off, Clay courts are more common in Europe and Latin America than in North America and tend to heavily favour baseline players. Grass courts are the fastest type of courts in common use and they consist of grass grown on very hard-packed soil, which adds additional variables, bounces depend on how healthy the grass is, how recently it has been mown, and the wear and tear of recent play
6.
Golf course
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A golf course is the grounds where the game of golf is played. It comprises a series of holes, each consisting of a ground, a fairway, the rough and other hazards. A standard round of golf consists of 18 holes, most courses contain 18 holes, some share fairways or greens, and a subset has nine holes, played twice per round. Par-3 courses consist of nine or 18 holes all of which have a par of three strokes, many older courses are links, often coastal. Courses are private, public, and municipally owned, and typically feature a pro shop, many private courses are found at country clubs. Although a specialty within landscape design or landscape architecture, golf course architecture is considered a field of study. While golf courses often follow the landscape, some modification is unavoidable. This is increasingly the case as new courses are likely to be sited on less optimal land. Bunkers and sand traps are almost always artificial, although other hazards may be natural, the layout of a fairway follows certain traditional principles, such as the number of holes, their par values, and the number of holes of each par value per course. It is also preferable to arrange greens to be close to the tee box of the next hole, to minimize travel distance while playing a round. Combined with the need to all the fairways within what is frequently a compact square or rectangular plot of land. In complex areas, two holes may share the same tee box, fairway, or even green and it is also common for separate tee-off points to be positioned for men, women, and amateurs, each one respectively lying closer to the green. Eighteen-hole courses are traditionally broken down into a front 9 and a back 9. On older courses, the holes may be out in one long loop, beginning and ending at the clubhouse, and thus the front 9 is referred to on the scorecard as out. More recent courses tend to be designed with the front 9, a successful design is as visually pleasing as it is playable. Most golf courses have only par-3, -4, and -5 holes, typical distances for the various holes from standard tees are as follows. Terrain can also be a factor, so that a long downhill hole might be rated par 4 and this compensates for the generally longer distance pro players can put on tee and fairway shots as compared to the average bogey golfer. The game of golf is played in what is called a round and this consists of playing a set number of holes in an order predetermined by the course
7.
Ice rink
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An ice rink is a frozen body of water and/or hardened chemicals where people can ice skate or play winter sports. There are also synthetic ice rinks where skating surfaces are made out of plastics, Rink, a Scottish word meaning course, was used as the name of a place where curling was played. The name has retained for the construction of ice areas for other sports. Early attempts at the construction of ice rinks were first made in the rink mania of 1841–44. As the technology for the maintenance of natural ice did not exist, the area of artificial ice is extremely convenient for such as may be desirous of engaging in the graceful and manly pastime of skating. The worlds first mechanically frozen ice rink was the Glaciarium, opened by John Gamgee in a tent in a building just off the Kings Road in Chelsea. In March, it moved to a permanent venue at 379 Kings Road, the rink was based on a concrete surface, with layers of earth, cow hair and timber planks. Atop these were laid oval copper pipes carrying a solution of glycerine with ether, nitrogen peroxide, the pipes were covered by water and the solution was pumped through, freezing the water into ice. Gamgee had discovered the process while attempting to develop a method to freeze meat for import from Australia and New Zealand, Gamgee operated the rink on a membership-only basis and attempted to attract a wealthy clientele, experienced in open-air ice skating during winters in the Alps. He installed an orchestra gallery, which could also be used by spectators, the Southport Glaciarium opened in 1879, using Gamgees method. In Germany, the first ice skating rink opened in 1882 in Frankfurt during a patent exhibition and it covered 520m² and operated for two months, the refrigeration system was designed by Linde. Rinks can also be made in cold climates by enclosing an area of ground, filling it with water. Snow may even be packed to use as a containment material, the rink is prepared by lowering the canals water level and letting the canal water freeze. The rink is then resurfaced nightly by cleaning the ice of snow, the longest ice skating trail can be found in Invermere, British Columbia, Canada, on Lake Windermere Whiteway. The naturally frozen trail measures 29.98 kilometres, in any climate, an arena ice surface can be installed in a properly built space. This consists of a bed of sand or occasionally a slab of concrete, the pipes carry a chilled fluid which can lower the temperature of the slab so that water placed atop will freeze. This method is known as ice to differentiate from ice rinks made by simply freezing water in a cold climate, indoors or outdoors. A more proper term is mechanically frozen ice
8.
Stadium
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Pausanias noted that for about half a century the only event at the ancient Greek Olympic festival was the race that comprised one length of the stade at Olympia, where the word stadium originated. In modern times, a stadium is officially a stadium when at least 50% of the capacity is an actual building. If the majority of the capacity is formed by grasshills, the venue is not officially considered a stadium. Most of the stadiums with a capacity of at least 10,000 are used for football, or soccer. A large amount of sports venues are also used for concerts. Stadium is the Latin form of the Greek word stadion, a measure of length equalling the length of 600 human feet, as feet are of variable length the exact length of a stadion depends on the exact length adopted for 1 foot at a given place and time. Although in modern terms 1 stadion =600 ft, in a historical context it may actually signify a length up to 15% larger or smaller. The equivalent Roman measure, the stadium, had a similar length — about 185 m -, the English use of stadium comes from the tiered infrastructure surrounding a Roman track of such length. Most dictionaries provide for both stadiums and stadia as valid English plurals, although etymological purists sometimes apply stadia only to measures of length in excess of 1 stadium. The oldest known stadium is the one in Olympia, in the western Peloponnese, Greece, initially the Games consisted of a single event, a sprint along the length of the stadium. The stadion, a measure of length, may be related to the Stadium, Greek and Roman stadiums have been found in numerous ancient cities, perhaps the most famous being the Stadium of Domitian, in Rome. The excavated and refurbished ancient Panathenaic stadium hosted a version of the Olympic Games in 1870,1875,1896 and 1906. The excavation and refurbishment of the stadium was part of the legacy of the Greek national benefactor Evangelos Zappas, the first stadiums to be built in the modern era were basic facilities, designed for the single purpose of fitting as many spectators in as possible. One such early stadium was the Lansdowne Road Stadium, the brainchild of Henry Dunlop, banned from locating sporting events at Trinity College, Dunlop built the stadium in 1872. Some 300 cartloads of soil from a trench beneath the railway were used to raise the ground, other early stadiums from this period in the UK include the Stamford Bridge stadium and Anfield stadium. In the U. S. However, many of these caught fire. All of the 19th-century wooden parks were replaced, some only a few years. Goodison Park was the first purpose-built football stadium in the world, walton-based building firm Kelly brothers were instructed to erect two uncovered stands that could each accommodate 4,000 spectators
9.
Miniature golf
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Miniature golf, also known as minigolf, or putt-putt, is an offshoot of the sport of golf focusing solely on the putting aspect of its parent game. When miniature golf retains many of these characteristics but without the use of any props or obstacles, the term Minigolf was formerly a registered trademark of a Swedish company that built its own patented type of minigolf courses. Resort towns such as Myrtle Beach, SC, Branson, MO, Pigeon Forge, TN and Wisconsin Dells, geometrically-shaped minigolf courses made of artificial materials began to emerge during the early 20th century. The earliest documented mention of such a course is in the 8 June 1912 edition of The Illustrated London News, which introduces a minigolf course called Gofstacle. Thomas McCulloch Fairbairn, a fanatic, revolutionized the game in 1922 with his formulation of a suitable artificial green—a mixture of cottonseed hulls, sand, oil. With this discovery, miniature golf became accessible everywhere, by the late 1920s there were over 150 rooftop courses in New York City alone and this American minigolf boom of early 20th century came to an end during the economic depression in the late 1930s. Nearly all minigolf courses in the United States were closed and demolished before the end of the 1930s. A rare surviving example from this period is the Parkside Whispering Pines Miniature Golf Course located near Rochester, New York, the first miniature golf course in Canada was at the Maples Inn in Pointe-Claire, Quebec. The Mapes was constructed as a home in the 1890s but was renovated into a club in 1902, opened to the public in 1914. The popular nightspot burned in 1985, one of the first documented minigolf courses in mainland Europe was built in 1926 by Fr. Mr. Schröder had been inspired by his visit to the United States, in 1930 Edwin O. Norrman and Eskil Norman returned to Sweden from the United States, where they had stayed for several years and witnessed the golden days of the American minigolf boom. In 1931 they founded a company Norman och Norrmans Miniatyrgolf, during the following years they spread this new leisure activity across Sweden, by installing minigolf courses in public parks and other suitable locations. Swedish minigolf courses typically had a wooden frame surrounding the playing area made of tennis field sand. The Swedish Minigolf Federation was founded in 1937, being the oldest minigolf sport organization in the world, National Swedish championships in minigolf have been played yearly since 1939. In other countries minigolf sport federations were not founded until the late 1950s, in 1954, the minigolf course in Ascona opened, the oldest course worldwide following the norms of Paul Bongni. The earliest documented minigolf competitions were played in the United States, the first National Tom Thumb Open minigolf tournament was arranged in 1930, with a total cash purse $10,000. Qualification play-offs were played in all of the 48 states, after the Depression ten years later, minigolf died out as a competition sport in America, and has begun to recover only during the most recent decades. The American minigolf sport boom of the 1930s inspired many European countries, in 1938 Joseph and Robert Taylor from Binghamton, New York started building and operating their own miniature golf courses
10.
Pelham Bay Park
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Pelham Bay Park is a public park located in the northeast corner of the New York City borough of the Bronx and extending partially into Westchester County. It is, at 2,772 acres, the largest public park in New York City, the section of the park within New York Citys borders is more than three times the size of Manhattans Central Park. The park is operated by the New York City Department of Parks, Anne Hutchinsons short-lived dissident colony, along with a number of other unsuccessful settlements, was located in what is now the parks land. In 1654 an Englishman named Thomas Pell purchased 50,000 acres from the Siwanoy, during the American Revolutionary War, the land was a buffer between British-held New York City and rebel-held Westchester. As such it was the site of the Battle of Pells Point, Orchard Beach, one of the citys most popular, was created through the efforts of Robert Moses in the 1930s. In 1941, the New York City Police Department used land from the park to create the Rodmans Neck Firing Range on the Rodmans Neck section of the park. About 600 acres are tidal, and fluctuate between being walkable and underwater, due to tide changes in the salt marshes and the receding shoreline of Orchard Beach. The park includes land on both sides of the Hutchinson River, and Hunters Island, Twin Island, and Two-Trees Island, all formerly true islands in Pelham Bay and it borders the Bronx neighborhoods of Country Club, Pelham Bay, City Island, and Co-op City. Formerly an island, Hunter Island, at 40°52′30″N 73°47′25″W, has connected to the mainland by infill. It was part of the Pelham Islands, the name for a group of islands in western Long Island Sound that once belonged to Thomas Pell. It bears the name of former owner John Hunter, a businessman and politician. Hunters residence and gardens were constructed and landscaped at great cost, the Mansion was built in the English Georgian style, similar to that of the old City Hall of New York City, and was described as one of the finest mansions of the period. It held a vast art collection of art by artists such as Rembrandt, Rubens, Van Dyke. The home was situated at the highest point on the island and had wonderful views of Long Island Sound to the east, terraced gardens flanked the home and continued down to the waterfront. A stone causeway and bridge were constructed, connecting the island to the mainland. John Hunter lived in the home for more than forty years until his death in 1852, the City of New York purchased the island in 1889. In 1937, Parks Commissioner Robert Moses decided to dredge the sand of the Rockaways to fill LeRoy’s Bay during the construction of Orchard Beach, the Hunter Mansion, which had fallen into disrepair, was also destroyed during construction. When the massive project was finished, Hunter Island was connected to nearby Twin Island and Rodmans Neck, becoming part of Pelham Bay Park, originally designated parkland in 1888
11.
Central Park
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Central Park is an urban park in Manhattan, New York City. Central Park is the most visited park in the United States, with 40 million visitors in 2013. The park was established in 1857 on 778 acres of city-owned land, construction began the same year and the parks first area was opened to the public in the winter of 1858. Construction continued during the American Civil War farther north, and was expanded to its current size of 843 acres in 1873, Central Park was designated a National Historic Landmark by the U. S. Department of the Interior in 1962. The Conservancy is a organization that contributes 75 percent of Central Parks $65 million annual budget and is responsible for all basic care of the 843-acre park. Between 1821 and 1855, New York City nearly quadrupled in population, as the city expanded northward up Manhattan, people were drawn to the few existing open spaces, mainly cemeteries, to get away from the noise and chaotic life in the city. Since Central Park was not part of the original Commissioners Plan of 1811, John Randel, Jr. surveyed the grounds. The only remaining surveying bolt from his survey is still visible, it is embedded in a rock just north of the present Dairy and the 65th Street Transverse, the bolt marks the location where West 65th Street would have intersected Sixth Avenue. The state appointed a Central Park Commission to oversee the development of the park, Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux developed what came to be known as the Greensward Plan, which was selected as the winning design. The Greensward Plan called for some 36 bridges, all designed by Vaux, ranging from rugged spans of Manhattan schist or granite, to lacy Neo-Gothic cast iron, several influences came together in the design. Landscaped cemeteries, such as Mount Auburn and Green-Wood had set examples of idyllic, naturalistic landscapes, the most influential innovations in the Central Park design were the separate circulation systems for pedestrians, horseback riders, and pleasure vehicles. The crosstown commercial traffic was entirely concealed in sunken roadways, screened with densely planted shrub belts so as to maintain a rustic ambiance, before the construction of the park could start, the area had to be cleared of its inhabitants. Most lived in villages, such as Harsenville, the Piggery District, or Seneca Village, or in the school. Approximately 1,600 residents were evicted under the rule of eminent domain during 1857, Seneca Village and parts of the other communities were razed to make room for the park. During the parks construction, Olmsted fought constant battles with the park commissioners, between 1860 and 1873, most of the major hurdles to construction were overcome and the park was substantially completed. The work was documented with technical drawings and photographs. More gunpowder was used to clear the area than was used at the Battle of Gettysburg during the American Civil War, the parks commissioners assigned a name to each of the original 18 gates in 1862. The names were chosen to represent the diversity of New York Citys trades, for example, Mariners Gate for the entrance at 85th Street
12.
Prospect Park (Brooklyn)
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Prospect Park is a 585-acre public park in the New York City borough of Brooklyn, and the largest public park in Brooklyn. The park is situated between the neighborhoods of Park Slope, Prospect Lefferts Gardens, Ditmas Park and Windsor Terrace, as well as Flatbush Avenue, Grand Army Plaza, Prospect Park is run and operated by the Prospect Park Alliance and New York City Department of Parks and Recreation. It is part of the Brooklyn-Queens Greenway, Prospect Park was designed by Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux after their completion of Manhattans Central Park. There is also a private Society of Friends cemetery on Quaker Hill near the ball fields, the area was originally forested, but became open pasture after two centuries of European colonization. Significant stands of trees remained only in the peat bogs centered south of Ninth Street and Flatbush Avenues, and in a large bog north of Ninth Avenue and contained chestnut, white poplar, and oak. Some of these stands were preserved in the Parks Ravine and have been popularized as The Last Forest of Brooklyn, during the American Revolution the Park was a site of the Battle of Long Island. American forces attempted to hold Battle Pass, an opening in the terminal moraine where the old Flatbush Road passed from Brooklyn to Flatbush and it fell after some of the heaviest fighting in the engagement, and its loss contributed to George Washingtons decision to retreat. Even though the Continental Army lost the battle, they were able to hold the British back long enough for Washingtons army to escape to Manhattan, there are plaques north of the zoo that honor this event. The City of Brooklyn built a reservoir on Prospect Hill in 1856, preserving the Battle Pass area and keeping the lots around the reservoir free of buildings were two reasons for establishing a large park in the area. This was due to Brooklyn becoming the worlds first commuter suburb, during this time, concepts concerning public parks gained popularity. In 1858 Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux created Central Park in Manhattan and it became the first landscaped park in the United States. He also believed that a park would attract wealthy residents. Of the seven sites mentioned in their February,1860 proposal, by the end of 1860, land had been purchased for Vieles plan, but the Civil War stopped further activity. Vaux included a plaza at the northern end of the park. It would be incorporated as Mount Prospect Park in 1940, the change in plans was not without consequences. The lots, however, constitute just over five percent of the parks acreage, much of this very expensive acreage houses the maintenance yards and is rarely seen by the public. Despite the repercussions of Vauxs revisions, Stranahan championed the plan, Vaux recruited Olmsted and formally presented their proposal in January 1866 and it was accepted in May, with work commencing in June. The park commissioners opened the park to the public on October 19,1867, work continued for another six years until it was substantially complete in 1873, though certain facets of the original design were never undertaken
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