| burnsy: Central Park was built eight years before the Civil War, and it was designed by Vaux and Olmstead, who won a design contest to build a public park in order to put New Yorkers to work during an economic downturn. They went on to design Prospect Park in Brooklyn. It was never used for Northern Army maneuvers, probably because there's enough grass outside of New York City (not that it existed until 1898 as a consolidated city) in Westchester and Central Jersey that don't require crossing a river or moving an army through a city to get to. |