1860 Central Park Double-Page Centerfold & Swans — New York City — Jun 16

🗞️ HARPER'S WEEKLY · June 16, 1860
Complete Issue · New York

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A beautiful and highly displayable issue devoted to Central Park — a magnificent double-page centerfold overview of the park in its early years, with a nearly half-page front-page illustration of swans on the park's waters and a related article. Central Park had only opened to the public in 1858 and was still under active construction by Olmsted and Vaux when this comprehensive overview was published — a primary document of one of the world's great urban parks at the very beginning of its history. An exceptional framing candidate.

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🌿 CENTRAL PARK — GENERAL VIEW
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🌳 DOUBLE-PAGE CENTERFOLD — "GENERAL VIEW OF THE CENTRAL PARK, NEW YORK"
A magnificent double-page centerfold overview of Central Park — published just two years after the park first opened to the public in 1858, while Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux were still actively constructing it. Central Park was the most ambitious landscape architecture project in American history — 843 acres of sculpted terrain, man-made lakes, carriage drives, bridle paths, and walking paths carved from the rocky, scrubby terrain of Manhattan's mid-island, transforming a blighted area of pig farms and squatter settlements into the great democratic pleasure ground of New York City. Olmsted and Vaux's Greensward Plan — which had won the design competition in 1858 — was being realized exactly as this centerfold was published, and the overview shows the park in its earliest fully designed form, before the trees had matured into the canopy that defines it today. This centerfold is a primary document of Central Park at its most formative moment — the world's most famous urban park captured in its infancy. A beautiful, significant, and very frameable piece of New York City history, landscape architecture history, and American urban history.

🦢 NEARLY HALF FRONT PAGE — SWANS IN CENTRAL PARK
A nearly half-page front-page illustration of swans on the waters of Central Park — one of the most charming and elegant early images of the park's wildlife, capturing the swans that Olmsted and Vaux had introduced to the park's lakes as part of their vision of a cultivated natural landscape in the heart of the city. A warm, beautiful, and very frameable companion to the double-page centerfold.

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📋 CONDITION
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I photograph every page of every issue so you can inspect the condition closely before purchasing. Please review all images carefully and don't hesitate to ask any questions — I'm happy to provide additional detail or close-up shots of any page, illustration, or area of concern before you buy.

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📌 DETAILS
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Publication ········ Harper's Weekly
Date ··············· June 16, 1860
City ··············· New York
Format ············· Illustrated newspaper, complete in 16 pages

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📦 SHIPPING & PRESERVATION
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• Stored in an acid-free protective bag and flat-shipped in a padded envelope with heavy cardboard reinforcement
• Fully tracked for your peace of mind

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🔍 SEO TAGS
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