5 April: Central Park, New York

On this date in 1851 New York's Central Park was first proposed. It was proposed by New York City's elite, who'd admired the city parks in Europe and thought New Yorkers would benefit from some green open space as well. 10 things you might not know about Central Park.

1. The park covers 3.5 square miles, and is actually bigger than a couple of countries (Vatican City and Monaco). That includes 136 acres of woodlands, 250 acres of lawns, 150 acres of water, 58 miles of paths, 36 bridges, 21 playgrounds, 30 tennis courts and 26,000 trees.
2. It was designed by a couple of guys called Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux, who won a contest to design the proposed park. They called it the Greensward plan, Greensward being an old word for Lawn.
3. Their design incorporated natural, curving forms, which means there is only one straight path in the entire park. It's a quarter of a mile long and is called The Mall.
4. The chosen site for the park was largely swamps and rocks. Nothing would actually grow in the boggy soil so they had to import 500,000 cubic feet of topsoil in order to make it work. The soil came from nearby New Jersey. The rocks were dealt with using gunpowder – they were blown up and removed in carriages. It's said this project used more gunpowder than the Battle of Gettysburg. The rocks are said to have come from ancient glaciers which melted 12,000 years ago.
5. The park also displaced about 1,600 people, who lived in a village there, called Seneca Village, which had been founded by free African Americans. Some were paid for their land but others were forcibly evicted.
6. According to the 2010 US census, 25 people still live there. This was an increase from 2000 when the park had 18 residents. To the census authorities, Central Park is called New York City Census Tract No 143; but they have no idea how come 25 people say they live there. One explanation put forward was that they were caretakers or park keepers, but the park authorities say there are no resident caretakers. It may be that some homeless people were claiming a park bench or underground tunnel as their home.
7. Green spaces will have animal life, and Central park is no exception. It has its own zoo and the numerous wild birds and Squirrels you'd normally find in a park. There's even a species of centipede that was only discovered in 2002, the Nannarup hoffmani, that lives in leaf litter and probably arrived in potted soil. A new species of fly and a new Moth have also been found there. There have been sheep – Sheep Meadow is so called for a reason. The sheep were moved during the great depression because it was feared that hungry New Yorkers might eat them.
8. There have been four Carousels. Two were destroyed by fire and the third, which required a Horse to power it was replaced by an abandoned carousel from Coney Island which is still there. It has 57 horses and is over 100 years old.
9. It has been a location for over 350 films.
10. It's haunted. The ghosts of two Victorian sisters called Janet and Rosetta Van Der Voort are said to appear there. They had a wealthy father who rarely let them out of the house alone, but the one place there were allowed to go without a chaperone was Central Park. Neither of them married and they died within a few months of each other. Their ghosts are said to be seen dressed in Red and Purple dresses, skating on the pond in winter.

My Books 

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The Ultraheroes series

Several new groups of superheroes, mostly British, living and working (mostly) in British cities like London and Birmingham. People discovering they have, and learning to live with, superpowers. Each book is complete in itself although there is some overlap of characters.

The Raiders series

A tale of two dimensions, and worm hole travel between the two. People displaced in both time and space, learning to get along and work together to find a way home while getting used to the superpowers wormhole travel gave them. A trilogy.

Golden Thread

A superhero tale with a difference. Five heroes from another dimension keep returning - whenever they return, they have a job to do and are a well-meshed team in order to do it. Until one time, something goes wrong...

Tabitha Drake series

A different kind of power - the ability to talk to dead people. Tabitha has it, and murder victims seek her out to make sure justice is done. Tabitha has this and a disastrous love life to cope with.

Short story collections

Some feature characters from the above novels, others don't. They're not all about superheroes. Some are creepy, romantic, funny.