A Day at the Park

I've always been in awe of Central Park. Knowing the perniciousness (ooh!  big word) of the American penchant for letting commercial properties expand their domain over whatever stands in their way, I’m shocked that it hasn’t been gobbled up by some developer during its 151 year history. Its exceptional existence is best realized with an aerial view. Someone had foresight. Someone had vision.

It all started in 1853 when some of the wealthy residents of Manhattan put out the idea that a park should be created in New York City. They’d seen the lovely parks in London and Paris and wanted their own bragging rights in the United States. It could be a park where they could take carriage rides and where working class people could find recreation. In 1853, after three years of public debate, the city took over 700 acres of land via eminent domain (that’s when the state seizes private property—with compensation but without the owner’s consent—for public use.) What existed at the site at the time were poor neighborhoods. Sixteen hundred people had to move for the sake of the park. Irish pig farmers, German gardeners, and a vital African-American community called Seneca Village, were displaced for the greater good. But the 700 acres wasn’t great land to begin with—which is why it hadn’t been developed commercially. It was swampy and rugged, with rocky outcroppings. The original boundaries were Fifth to Eighth Avenues, from 59th and 106th streets. In 1863 it was extended to 110th Street, which brought Central Park up to its current 843 acres.



Bethesda Terrace under construction 1862



Bethesda Terrace today

Central Park became the first landscaped public park in the United States. Its design came about because of the country’s first landscape contest. The winners were Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux.

They wanted to combine a pastoral feeling like the Ramble and Sheep meadow (that had sheep present into the 1930’s!) with more formal areas like the Mall (the Promenade) and the Bethesda Fountain. Bowing to opinion, they adapted their design to allow separate paths for carriage, horse, and pedestrian use. To do so, they had to create forty bridges--no two the same.

They also had to blast out solid rock to make the reservoirs and change the terrain. They used more gunpowder for blasting than was used in the (then future) Battle of Gettysburg. Over 20,000 men labored on the park, moving 3,000,000 cubic yards of soil and planting 270,000 trees and shrubs. Imagine all those seedlings and baby plants. The vista was obviously not as lush as it is now. But it was a beginning. The park officially opened in winter 1859, just in time for ice skating. Soon after, the park had over seven million visitors a year!

Yet originally, the park was bedeviled by rules of who could use it—and how. Group picnics were banned, and if you were a tradesman you couldn’t take your family on a ride in the park using the wagon you used for your business. If kids wanted to play ball? They had to have a note from the principal of their school! Stupid rules meant to keep the park pristine for the upper class. There was of course a public outcry and eventually the rules were eased. A zoo was added in 1871, a carousel, lawn tennis and such, making it much more democratic. Many changes (additions and deletions) have been made over the years, adapting to the times. The original Central Park Reservoir—that used to provide water to the city—was renamed the Jaqueline Kennedy Onassis Revervoir in 1994. Jackie O had an apartment overlooking the park and jogged there for years. Also, over 200 movies have been made using areas of the park. If you’ve seen the movies "Enchanted" (love the dance scene!), "Serendipity", "Breakfast at Tiffany’s", "When Harry Met Sally", "27 Dresses", and a myriad of “Law & Order” episodes . . . you’ve seen clips filmed in Central Park.

The Mall (Promenade)

In my novel Masquerade, I had my characters at the Bethesda Terrace (shown above as it was being constructed in 1862.) I have them comment on the Angel of the Waters fountain. I have them taking a stroll down the Mall… It’s somehow comforting to know that my 1886 characters saw what I can see today.//Nancy Moser

History's Mysteries

Once upon a time, when my family was hoping to move to the country, we drove up a rutted dirt road ... and found a story.

The house was damaged beyond hope, although it took a while for a contractor to convince us that rotted sills did not a "fixer-upper" make. Still, something about the place remains with me yet today. In fact, this house is probably "the house that built me" as a writer. The rooms were knee-deep in the lives of people who'd lived here. Literally, knee deep. Photographs like the one with the family. School assignments. Quilts. Clothing. No furniture ... only the things that you and I would think of as the personal things that we wouldn't want to part with.

What's the story here? Let's talk story.

--- Stephanie

Fill 'er up!

How many kids can you fit in a shopping cart and still shop? From personal experience, the answer is two: one in the baby seat, one in the main compartment—as long as he sits still and is willing to hold cans of soup, boxes of cereal, and various fruits and vegetables. With three kids this was our usual routine—with the eldest, Emily, helping me choose items from the shelves. Now that I have three grandkids, and take care of one of them every Monday, I have come to fully appreciate shopping carts. As soon as little Lily was old enough to sit in a cart I was free to use a portion of my Mondays for errands. At age three she's become quite the shopper.

There's no way I could take Lily with me to shop if it weren't for carts. Yet believe it or not, they are a rather new phenomenon. Sylvan Goldman, of the Humpty-Dumpty grocery chain, invented them in 1937. One evening he was trying to think of ways to get more business and happened to spot a folding chair. What if he raised it up, put a basket on it, added another basket beneath it, wheels, and a handle? With the help of Fred Young, a maintenance man at the store, he invented the first "folding shopping cart". But it was an unwieldy thing because the baskets had to be removed at the check-out and to store the cart, and the carts tended to fold when they shouldn't.  Remember, most stores weren't designed for storing a bunch of carts, or maneuvering around with them.

What is shocking is that people didn't take to the carts right away. He advertised his new invention in the paper, making a big deal about how it would change the shopping experience. This, from Goldman: "I got down to the store about 10 o’clock in the morning waiting for the time when people’ll start coming in, and this right on a . . . Saturday when it’s your biggest day, and I knew that I’d be seeing people lined up at the door to get in to get the merchandise and see what the dickens it was. And when I got there, I went into our largest store, there wasn’t a soul using a basket carrier, and we had an attractive girl by the entrance that had a basket carrier and two baskets in it, one on the top and one on the bottom, and asked them to please take this cart to do your shopping with. And the housewives, most of them decided, “No more carts for me. I have been pushing enough baby carriages. I don’t want to push anymore.” And the men would say, “You mean with my big strong arms I can’t carry a darn little basket like that?” And he wouldn’t touch it. It was a complete flop."

 To sell the idea to his customers, he hired handsome models of all ages and both sexes to pretend to shop around his store (in fur coats, no less.  This woman must have a passel of kids to feed at home.) Once these shills (he admits that's what they were) were traversing the store, the pretty girl near the front handing out carts could say. "See? Others are using a cart, why not you?" It worked.  For more about Goldman go to: Sylvan Goldman & the Shopping Cart  

Shopping carts became such a phenomenon, that the "Saturday Evening Post" featured one on its cover in 1940.

In 1946, Orla Watson from Kansas City invented the telescoping shopping cart that could fit together for easier storage. He tried to patent it, but Goldman objected. They came to an agreement that Watson could have the patent if Goldman could have the license on a few other things. I'm no lawyer, but it sounds like they worked together, which after all is a good thing for two businessmen to do.  Because of this one invention the entire layout of stores and check-out lanes had to be redesigned.
 

In 1947 they added a child's seat, and in 1952 someone invented the plastic flap in the seat that flips up so small items didn't end up on the floor. In 1954 someone decided to add color-coordinated, personalization to the cart handles. And in 1961 wheeled casters made the carts easier to handle. For a time there were even "power lift" carts that made the baskets rise to the level of the counter. It amazes me how people are so creative, constantly thinking of improvements. But it still comes down to the fact that someone has to start the ball rolling. Someone has to have the initial vision.

There have been studies done proving that stores that have carts (like Wal-mart and Home Depot) sell more than stores that do not (Penney's and Sears.) Our propensity is to fill up the space we have. Hey, we do it with our houses, why not shopping carts?//Nancy Moser