Given my infatuation with Central Park since moving to New York City, here are a few interesting tidbits:
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Central Park was the first public landscaped park in all of the United States. It was designed by Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux.
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The Park takes up roughly 843 acres of land (6 percent of Manhattan’s total acreage), making it larger than the principality of Monaco. There are seven water bodies totaling 150 acres, 136 acres of woodlands, and 250 acres of lawns.
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The Park welcomes 25 million visitors annually.
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The Central Park Conservancy, a private, not-for-profit organization founded in 1980, manages Central Park under a contract with the city. The conservancy provides more than 85 percent of Central Park’s annual $20 million operating budget.
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The perimeter is 6 miles (2.5 miles up and down the avenues and 0.5 miles across Central Park North and South). There are 58 miles of walking paths, 4.25 miles of bridle paths, 26 ball fields, 30 tennis courts, 21 playgrounds, one carousel, and two ice-skating rinks (one of which is converted into a swimming pool in the summer).
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