A fascinating collection of historical documents covering the period from the 1850s to the 1890s and the creation of New York City's Central Park, and the controversies that surrounded how the park was to be developed, managed and used by the public. To a certain extent, Frederick Law Olmstead, Sr. (one of the two original landscape designers) settles a number of scores with the Democratic "Tammany Hall" machine that made life very difficult for him, and for those that supported his particular vision of a bucolic park. This particular book is a reprint of a book that was originally published in 1928, at a period when Central Park was in decline; it would subsequently be the subject of much renovation work by Robert Moses in the 1930s, and another round of renovation work in the 1980s, after another period of decline. Many of the issues tackled in the book, such as political interference, lack of funding, and careless use by the public, still resonate today. Stretches of the book can be pretty dry reading, but there are other parts that are riveting. This particular edition, it should be noted, has a very nice fold-out map at the back. ( )