ABSTRACT
Focusing on stories behind the development of urban parks helps us to understand how state institutions contribute to shaping the city. The programming of urban parks reveals an underlying conception of who should inhabit public spaces. By comparing the development of iconic public parks in New York City and in Buenos Aires, this chapter explores the normative ideals of urban government towards people and parks. In the nineteenth century, both cities created a rect angular iconic park of 4,000 metres by 800 metres, New York City’s Central Park and the San Isidro Jockey Club in Buenos Aires. At the time, both cities were important industrial and commercial hubs experiencing explosive population growth thanks to an intense and rapid flow of immigrants. In both cities local governments were actively managing this growth; providing tap water by the 1890s, subways by the 1900s, and regulating building footprints and maximum heights by the 1920s. However, there were significant differences in the develop ment of parks in each city. Urban parks in Buenos Aires and in New York City importantly highlight national differences between the United States and Argen tina. The design of New York City’s Central Park ‘comes from the people, and to them, in all phases of society it must necessarily be devoted’ (NYT, 1857). Conversely, San Isidro Jockey Club Park was to be ‘for the larger land owners, of aristocratic pretensions and sumptuous fitting’ (Clemenceau, 1911).
