Frederick Law Olmsted, America's preeminent landscape architect of the 19th century, designed dozens of parks, parkways and college campuses across the country. With Calvert Vaux, he created two of New York City's greatest parks -- Central Park and Prospect Park.
Yet before Central Park, he had never worked on any significant landscape project and he wasn't formally trained in any kind of architecture.
In fact, Fred was a bit of a wandering soul, drifting from one occupation to the next, looking for fulfillment in farming, traveling and writing.
This is the remarkable story of how Olmsted found his true calling.
The Central Park proposal drafted by Olmsted and Vaux -- called the Greensward Plan -- drew from personal experiences, ideas of social reform and the romance of natural beauty (molded and manipulated, of course, by human imagination).
But for Olmsted, it was also created in the gloom of personal sadness. And for Vaux, in the reverence of a mentor who died much too young.
PLUS: In celebration of the 200th anniversary of Olmsted's birth, Greg is joined on the show by Adrian Benepe, former New York City parks commissioner and president of Brooklyn Botanic Garden.
boweryboyshistory.com
Taxi Driver (Bowery Boys Movie Club)
#281 The Treasures of Downtown Brooklyn
#280 House of Mystery: The Story of the Collyer Brothers
#279 A New Year in Old New York: From Times Square to Chinatown
#278 Newark vs. LaGuardia: The Tale of Two Airports
#277 The New York Comedy Scene: A Marvelous History
#276 Murder on Bond Street: Who Killed Dr. Burdell?
#275 Return to Tin Pan Alley: Saving American Music History
#274 Ghost Stories of Hell's Kitchen
#273 Peter Stuyvesant and the Fall of New Amsterdam
#272 Life in New Amsterdam
#271 Counter Culture: Diners, Automats, and Luncheonettes in New York
#270 Heaven on the Hudson: A History of Riverside Park
#269 Harry Houdini and the Golden Age of Magic in New York
#268 The Astonishing Saga of the Atlantic Cable
#267 Broadway: The Story of a Street
#266 New York City during the Revolutionary War (1776-1783)
#265 Absolutely Flawless: A History of Drag in New York City
#264 The Landmarks of Coney Island
#263 Ebbets Field and the Glory Days of the Brooklyn Dodgers
Create your
podcast in
minutes
It is Free
Irish Songs with Ken Murray
History Obscura
Historycal: Words that Shaped the World
The Rest Is History
Rachel Maddow Presents: Ultra