
Saving Central Park: A History and a Memoir
Author: Rogers, Elizabeth BarlowColor: BlackEdition: IllustratedFormat: IllustratedNumber Of Pages: 336Details: The story of how one woman's long love affair with New York's Central Park led her to organize its rescue from a state of serious decline, returning it to the beautiful place of recreational opportunity and spiritual sustenance that it is today. Elizabeth Barlow Rogers opens with a quick survey of her early life--a middle-class upbringing in Texas; college at Wellesley, marriage, a master's degree in city planning at Yale. And then her move to New York, where she starts a family and, when she finds being a mother and a housewife is not enough, pours herself into the protection and enhancement of the city's green spaces. Interwoven into her own story is a comprehensive history of Central Park: its design and construction as a scenic masterpiece; the alterations of each succeeding era; the addition of numerous facilities for sports and play; and finally, the "anything goes"