The Machines That Built New York's Central Park (1858-1873)

Everyone knows what is buried under Central Park. Almost nobody knows how it got there. New York blasted two hundred and sixty tons of gunpowder into upper Manhattan to build this park, moved nearly five million cubic yards of rock and earth by cart and horse, and buried ninety-five miles of clay pipe under the lawns before a single blade of grass went in. This is that story, machine by machine, from eighteen fifty-eight to eighteen seventy-three. Enjoyed this documentary? Subscribe for more deep dives into the world's most powerful machines: 👉 Construction Legends:    / @constructionlegends   ☕ Support our work: https://buymeacoffee.com/Construction... The engineer who mapped the ground was Egbert Viele. The commissioners hired Frederick Law Olmsted to work under him, and seven months later Olmsted had his job. Six years after that, Viele took them to court. In this video: the ninety-five miles of drainage tile George E. Waring Jr. buried under the park after losing the design competition. The two hundred and sixty tons of powder, and the blasting that New Yorkers came uptown to watch. The men who moved the earth for a dollar a day, and the five who died and were never named. Seneca Village, what the city paid Andrew Williams for the home he owned for thirty-two years, and what a work crew found in that ground in eighteen seventy-one. And the four sunken roads that thirty-two of the thirty-three competing plans left on the surface, which are the only reason Central Park works as a park at all. Sources include the Papers of Frederick Law Olmsted, Rosenzweig and Blackmar's The Park and the People, the Central Park Conservancy, the New York Public Library, and the diary of George Templeton Strong. Chapters 00:00 The park that should not exist 02:01 Viele and the ground nobody wanted 05:47 Clearing the land and Seneca Village 10:22 Waring drains the swamp: ninety-five miles of pipe 13:21 Two hundred and sixty tons of gunpowder 18:54 Moving five million cubic yards 23:00 The four roads nobody sees 27:48 The reservoir, the money, and Green 30:50 Tweed, the graves, and what survived