Central Park is an unusual location: green area 4 kilometers framed by the Manhattan skyline. The Park is well-kept, shady, it is the mass of living creatures, and all this in two steps from the vibrant streets.

Its history began in the first half of the XIX century, when the population of new York grew rapidly, and entertain people had no place. On weekends at the time, was walking in cemeteries – other greenery in the city. New York needed something like the Paris Bois de Boulogne or London's Hyde Park.

In 1853, the legislative Assembly of the city planned to build a Park in Manhattan. Was given the contest of projects, won the journalist and landscape architect Frederick olmstead and British architect Calvert Vaux. Reserved for Park of 280 acres lying between the then new York and the village of Harlem. The territory was desolate: there were about 1600 of the poor free blacks (it was before the Civil war, which abolished slavery), the Irish. To reclaim land, they were paid compensation by the specially adopted law on compulsory alienation of private property.

The landscape was completely re-created by the hills and lakes (for their formation used more gunpowder than in the famous battle of the Civil war at Gettysburg). From the future of the Park was taken over ten million carts of earth and stone. In return brought fourteen thousand cubic meters of fertile soil from new Jersey, dropped more than four million shrubs and trees.

The Park was gorgeous, but immediately after opening it began to decay: then prevailed in new York, the Democratic party has not shown interest in it. That all changed in 1934, when the mayor of the city elected a Republican Fiorello LaGuardia. He was able to quickly clear the Park of debris, repair bridges and lakes. Appeared sports facilities. In the sixties mayor John Lindsay, himself an avid cyclist, banned car entrance to the Park on weekends. However, following this, came a twenty-year period of decline: the Park was destroyed by vandals in the dark to appear here was dangerous.

The revival began in the eighties. Today Central Park is one of the most attractive places in new York. It is visited by approximately thirty five million people a year. There are extensive Hiking and equestrian trails, a zoo, a wildlife sanctuary, an outdoor theater and many other attractions. Local shale cliffs attract rock climbers. Two rinks are available in the winter, there are fields for baseball, volleyball, bowling on the lawn, cricket. The Park has twenty-nine sculptures, including the statue of Duke Ellington the works of Robert Graham. Nearby, a monument to the dog Balto, who in 1925 had saved the city of Nome in Alaska, bringing back in the terrible cold of the serum against diphtheria.

There is in Central Park and a historical rarity: "Cleopatra's Needle", "sister" granite obelisks in London and Paris. Ancient Egyptian obelisk standing here since 1881.

In the Park there are more than twenty-five thousand trees, including elms, Amur and Japanese maples. It is home to 235 species of birds (even the rare red-tailed hawk). Park place spring and autumn migration of birds on the Atlantic Flyway. Live here and, it seems, is not very afraid of people raccoons, squirrels, chipmunks, opossums.