The sidewalks surrounding Central Park were designed to help you escape.
Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux, the landscape architects behind the landmark, proposed in their 1858 planning document planting a luxurious line of trees to separate the sidewalk and road, “in order to conceal the houses on the opposite side of the road.” street”. , from the park, and to ensure a shady horizon line.”
Hexagonal asphalt shingles were laid and granite blocks were arranged in intricate herringbone and basket-weave patterns, forming the distinctive path now traveled by 42 million visitors each year.
The main goal of the park's exterior sidewalk was to ensure that the moment you step on it, “you realize you're not in the city anymore,” said Elizabeth W. Smith, president and CEO of the Central Park Conservancy.
But the pavement is now a bumpy road.
When the paved sidewalks were originally installed in the 1930s, more than 70 years after the first section of the park opened to the public, there were no electric scooters, Citi bikes or people getting in and out of Ubers. Natural impediments have also arisen: the roots of overgrown trees push up sections of the sidewalk and puddles of storm water accumulate in their dips. It's a security and accessibility nightmare.
With a major push that began last summer, the conservancy is restoring sidewalks to their former grandeur block by block (all 108, spanning approximately six miles) by examining each section's unique needs and level of deterioration, with a budget of around $600,000 per block. Funding for the project comes from the city and the conservancy, a conservancy spokesperson said. Currently, less than a third of the perimeter is restored, with 26 blocks completed and six under construction. The team does not have an estimated completion date for the entire perimeter, but said the current phase of work is expected to be completed in 2028.
The Central Park Conservancy is balancing preservation with modern needs, including accessibility, which is one of the group's main initiatives in recent and future projects, Ms. Smith said.
Potential safety risks posed by the condition of sidewalks and trees have led to lawsuits against the entity and the city in the past. Last year, $5.5 million settlement This situation came to light in a lawsuit filed by a woman who was injured after an elm tree fell on her and her three children. That same year, a Brooklyn resident filed a lawsuit alleging that sidewalk conditions caused her to fall. And in 2021, another park visitor filed a lawsuit, arguing that he was injured after a fall caused by “the broken, depressed and uneven sidewalk/walkway filled with leaves covering the gap.”
Along with perimeter benches and bus stops, the organization is installing new granite block pavers on a more regular basis that will allow people who use wheelchairs or canes to more smoothly traverse the sidewalk, said Jennifer Wong, manager of project and landscape architect of the organization.
And in some sections where legacy pavement had been sporadically replaced by plain pavement, conservation is bringing back the ornate patterns. “At some point someone came in and said, 'We need an accessible block at the bus stop,'” Ms. Wong said. “And then they destroyed the granite block and just put in what they needed to make it work. So that's part of our job here, reestablishing paving patterns, while incorporating new, modern uses.”
Saving the 'special flavor' of elms
In New York, updating the built environment can come at the expense of historic aesthetics. gray buildings and floors have often replaced the beloved brownstones and parquet boards. Some nostalgic aspects of the urban landscape, such as bilingual road signs, fade over time, and new fixtures such as outdoor dining huts appear, seemingly unprecedented. But preserving the sidewalk's original appearance—maintaining and in some places restoring the old herringbone and basket-weave pavement patterns—is critical to conservation modernization efforts.
The park's prized American elms are a big part of the reason the restoration will take years to complete. The conservancy planted 58 new trees around the perimeter and is taking care to disturb the existing roots as little as possible while installing the new sidewalk blocks and benches.
“Central Park has one of the largest stands of American elm trees left in North America because Dutch elm disease took out many elm trees across the country,” Ms. Smith said. The disease, which was first found in the United States in the 1930s, killed 90 percent of American elm trees, The Times previously reported. Ms Smith added: “A lot of the work we are doing on the perimeter is also to protect the elm trees, because they give that special flavor to being in Central Park.”
'The definitive public space'
It may seem like a big deal to go find a sidewalk, something we walk on everywhere. But sidewalks can be a kind of equalizer in New York City, where the very rich live very differently from the very poor.
“Sidewalks are the quintessential public space,” said Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris, a professor of urban planning at the University of California, Los Angeles, who wrote a book about them. “They exemplify openness and democracy. They are supposed to be the most public public spaces. To be that, they really have to be open and accessible to everyone, regardless of age, gender, disability, race, ethnicity, all the variables.”
Sidewalks have many more uses today than when they first became widespread in the United States in the 19th century, Dr. Loukaitou-Sideris said, pointing to electric scooters, delivery robots, people using Google Maps on foot, people waiting Ubers. and restaurants that expand onto the sidewalk. “There are all these new uses that have emerged thanks to digital technology and the pandemic,” she said. “Sidewalks are becoming more important than they were and it could be a new era for sidewalks.”
New Yorkers, often credited with turning ordinary necessities into spectacular amenities, can transform the sidewalk into a stage, a market, or even a five-star restaurant.
Shayeza Walid, a 23-year-old master's student who lives in Morningside Heights, recalled how a sidewalk saved her 15th birthday.
She and her friends couldn't get into a restaurant where they were hoping to celebrate, so they bought slices of pizza and ate them on the sidewalk. “We ended up having a great time there and that was one of my best birthdays,” Ms. Walid said.
Last year, Sean O'Connell walked more than 20 blocks of Central Park's perimeter sidewalk, from the Metropolitan Museum of Art to the Plaza Hotel. “You can tell he just needs help and someone to level him safely,” said O'Connell, a 25-year-old gardener who lives in Park Slope. “And just with the amount of things they're trying to put on the sidewalk, like signs, Citi Bike stops, space is more valuable.”
Reflecting on the importance of sidewalks in his life today, O'Connell said that when he was growing up in Brooklyn, sidewalks were his “antagonist.” “When he was a kid he walked a little funny,” he said. “He would be stumbling from left to right. Much of my block was just an uneven sidewalk. When I was ten years old, I was suffering.”
For O'Connell, life was defined by the freedom the sidewalk gave him. “Growing up here, everything happens on the sidewalk, like my whole social life, including going to school, meeting friends on the sidewalk, seeing people,” Mr. O'Connell said. “I just can't imagine life without being able to walk wherever I want.”
