Elizabeth Blackmar

This "exemplary social history" (Kirkus Reviews) is the first full-scale account of Central Park ever published. Elizabeth Blackmar and Roy Rosenzweig tell the story of Central Park's people—the merchants and landowners who launched the project; the immigrant and African-American residents who were displaced by the park; the politicians, gentlemen, and artists who disputed its design and operation; the German gardeners, Irish laborers, and Yankee engineers who built it; and the generations of New Yorkers for whom Central Park was their only backyard. In tracing the park's history, Blackmar and Rosenzweig give us the history of New York, and bring to life larger issues about the meaning of the word "public" in a democratic society.

In this interesting and wide-ranging book, Elizabeth Blackmar investigates the development of New York City's housing market from colonial times to 1850. She discusses public officials, landowners, builders, renters and tenants, and the interplay among and between these groups as the value of land in the city skyrocketed in the early nineteenth century and made renting the only possibility for most New Yorkers.—American Studies International