Pierre Martel, Central Park, 1864. Lithograph published by H. Geissler

When construction began on Olmsted and Vaux’s plan for Central Park, the population of Manhattan was concentrated downtown and the grid’s northern reaches remained a projection. “The time will come when New York will be built up,” Olmsted observed then, “when all the grading and filling will be done, and when the picturesquely-varied, rocky formations of the Island will have been converted into formations for rows of monotonous straight streets, and piles of erect buildings.” In this 1864 view of Central Park from the southeast corner entrance, the conversion that Olmsted foresaw had begun only on the east side, where the terrain was flatter than on the west side. Already buildings line the edges of the blocks along Fifth Avenue, while the streets have not yet been cut through the west side hills. Despite the lack of uptown residents, Olmsted anticipated that when the street grid eventually filled out, property near the park would increase in value, and he defended the park’s size on these grounds. When the construction of the grid was complete, Olmsted expected that an “artificial wall, twice as high as the Great Wall of China, composed of urban buildings” would circle the park; by the year of this view, it had started to rise. CY