Frederick Law Olmsted in the context of "World's Columbian Exposition"

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⭐ Core Definition: Frederick Law Olmsted

Frederick Law Olmsted (April 26, 1822 – August 28, 1903) was an American landscape architect, journalist, social critic, and public administrator. He is considered to be the father of landscape architecture in the United States. Olmsted was famous for co-designing many well-known urban parks with his partner Calvert Vaux, beginning with Central Park in New York City, which led to numerous other urban park designs including Prospect Park in Brooklyn, Cadwalader Park in Trenton, New Jersey, and Forest Park in Portland, Oregon.

Olmsted's projects encompassed comprehensive park systems, planned communities, and institutional campuses across North America. His major works included the country's first coordinated system of public parks and parkways in Buffalo, New York, the Emerald Necklace in Boston, Massachusetts, the Grand Necklace of Parks in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and parks for the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago. He designed one of the first planned communities in the United States, Riverside, Illinois, and created master plans for universities including University of California, Berkeley, Stanford University, and the University of Chicago. Notable individual projects included the Biltmore Estate in Asheville, North Carolina, Mount Royal Park in Montreal, Quebec, and landscape work for the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C.

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👉 Frederick Law Olmsted in the context of World's Columbian Exposition

The World's Columbian Exposition, also known as the Chicago World's Fair, was a world's fair held in Chicago from May 1 to October 31, 1893, to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus's arrival in the New World in 1492. The centerpiece of the Fair, held in Jackson Park, was a large water pool representing the voyage that Columbus took to the New World. Chicago won the right to host the fair over several competing cities, including New York City, Washington, D.C., and St. Louis. The exposition was an influential social and cultural event and had a profound effect on American architecture, the arts, American industrial optimism, and Chicago's image.

The layout of the Chicago Columbian Exposition was predominantly designed by John Wellborn Root, Daniel Burnham, Frederick Law Olmsted, and Charles B. Atwood. It was the prototype of what Burnham and his colleagues thought a city should be. It was designed to follow Beaux-Arts principles of design, namely neoclassical architecture principles based on symmetry, balance, and splendor. The color of the material generally used to cover the buildings' façades, white staff, gave the fairgrounds its nickname, the White City. Many prominent architects designed its 14 "great buildings". Artists and musicians were featured in exhibits and many also made depictions and works of art inspired by the exposition. One particularly notable attraction was the world's first ferris wheel, standing at a height of 264 feet, which was designed to rival the Eiffel Tower built for the 1889 World's Fair four years earlier.

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Frederick Law Olmsted in the context of Central Park, New York

Central Park is an urban park between the Upper West Side and Upper East Side neighborhoods of Manhattan in New York City, and the first landscaped park in the United States. It is the sixth-largest park in the city, containing 843 acres (341 ha), and the most visited urban park in the United States, with an estimated 42 million visitors annually as of 2016. Central Park is owned by the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation but has been managed by the Central Park Conservancy since 1998 under a contract with the government of New York City in a public–private partnership. The conservancy, a non-profit organization, sets Central Park's annual operating budget and is responsible for care of the park.

The creation of a large park in Manhattan was first proposed in the 1840s, and a 778-acre (315 ha) park approved in 1853. In 1858, landscape architects Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux won a design competition for the park with their "Greensward Plan". Construction began in 1857; existing structures, including a majority-Black settlement named Seneca Village, were seized through eminent domain and razed. The park's first areas were opened to the public in late 1858. Additional land at the northern end of Central Park was purchased in 1859, and the park was completed in 1876. After a period of decline in the early 20th century, New York City parks commissioner Robert Moses started a program to clean up Central Park in the 1930s. The Central Park Conservancy, created in 1980 to combat further deterioration in the late 20th century, refurbished many parts of the park starting in the 1980s.

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Frederick Law Olmsted in the context of Calvert Vaux

Calvert Vaux FAIA (/vɔːks/; December 20, 1824 – November 19, 1895) was an English-American architect and landscape designer. He and his protégé Frederick Law Olmsted designed parks such as Central Park and Prospect Park in New York City and the Delaware Park–Front Park System in Buffalo, New York.

Vaux, on his own and in various partnerships, designed and created dozens of parks across the northeastern United States, most famously in Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Buffalo in New York. He introduced new ideas about the significance of public parks in America during a hectic time of urbanization. This industrialization of the cityscape inspired Vaux to focus on the integration of buildings, bridges, and other forms of architecture into their natural surroundings. He favored naturalistic and curvilinear lines in his designs.

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Frederick Law Olmsted in the context of Landscape architect

A landscape architect is a person who is educated and trained in the field of landscape architecture.

According to the International Federation of Landscape Architects, which draws on International Standard Classification of Occupations (ISCO/08, 2162), the profession is defined as:

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Frederick Law Olmsted in the context of Tourism in New York City

New York City received a ninth consecutive annual record of approximately 65.2 million tourists in 2018, the busiest tourist city attraction, and one of the world's overall busiest tourist attractions, counting not just overnight visitors but anyone visiting for the day from over 50 miles away, including commuters. Overall the city welcomed 37.9 million visitors who stayed overnight in 2018, of whom 13.6 million were international. Major destinations include the Empire State Building, Ellis Island, the Statue of Liberty on Liberty Island, Broadway theatre productions, Central Park, Times Square, Coney Island, the Financial District, museums, and sports stadiums. Other major visitor activities include luxury shopping along Fifth and Madison Avenues; entertainment events such as the Tribeca Film Festival; Randalls Island music festivals such as Governors Ball, Panorama and Electric Zoo; and free performances in Central Park at Summerstage and Delacorte Theater. Many New York City ethnic enclaves, such as Jackson Heights, Flushing, and Brighton Beach are major shopping destinations for first and second generation Americans.

New York City has over 28,000 acres (110 km) of parkland and 14 linear miles (22 km) of public beaches. Manhattan's Central Park, designed by Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux, is the most visited city park in the United States. Prospect Park in Brooklyn, also designed by Olmsted and Vaux, has a 90-acre (36 ha) meadow. Flushing Meadows–Corona Park in Queens, the city's fourth-largest, was the setting for the 1939 World's Fair and 1964 World's Fair.

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Frederick Law Olmsted in the context of Jamaica Plain

Jamaica Plain is a neighborhood of 4.4 square miles (11 km) in Boston, Massachusetts, United States. Settled by Puritans seeking farmland to the south, it was originally part of Roxbury. The community seceded from Roxbury during the formation of West Roxbury in 1851 and became part of Boston when West Roxbury was annexed in 1874. In the 19th century, Jamaica Plain became one of the first streetcar suburbs in America and home to a significant portion of Boston's Emerald Necklace of parks, designed by Frederick Law Olmsted.

In 2020, Jamaica Plain had a population of 41,012 according to the United States Census.

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Frederick Law Olmsted in the context of Crown Heights, Brooklyn

Crown Heights is a neighborhood in the central portion of the New York City borough of Brooklyn. Crown Heights is bounded by Washington Avenue to the west, Atlantic Avenue to the north, Ralph Avenue to the east, and Empire Boulevard to the south. It is about one mile (1.6 km) wide and two miles (3.2 km) long. Neighborhoods bordering Crown Heights include Prospect Heights to the west, Flatbush, Prospect Lefferts Gardens and East Flatbush to the south, Brownsville to the east, and Bedford–Stuyvesant to the north.

The main thoroughfare through this neighborhood is Eastern Parkway, a tree-lined boulevard designed by Frederick Law Olmsted in the late-1800s, extending two miles (3.2 km) east–west. Earlier, the area was sometimes known as Crow Hill, with a succession of ridges running east and west from Utica Avenue to Washington Avenue, and south to Empire Boulevard and East New York Avenue. When Crown Street was cut through in 1916, the area became known as the heights.

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Frederick Law Olmsted in the context of Lynn, Massachusetts

Lynn is the eighth-largest municipality in Massachusetts, United States, and the largest city in Essex County. Situated on the Atlantic Ocean, 3.7 miles (6.0 km) north of the Boston city line at Suffolk Downs, Lynn is part of Greater Boston's urban inner core and is a major economic and cultural center of the North Shore.

Settled by Europeans in 1629, Lynn is the 5th oldest colonial settlement in the Commonwealth. An early industrial center, Lynn was long colloquially referred to as the "City of Sin", owing to its historical reputation for crime and vice. Today, however, the city is known for its immigrant population, historic architecture, downtown cultural district, loft-style apartments, and public parks and open spaces, which include the oceanfront Lynn Shore Reservation; the 2,200-acre, Frederick Law Olmsted-designed Lynn Woods Reservation; and the High Rock Reservation and Park designed by Olmsted's sons. Lynn also is home to Lynn Heritage State Park, the southernmost portion of the Essex Coastal Scenic Byway, and the seaside, National Register-listed Diamond Historic District. The population was 101,253 at the 2020 United States census.

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