New York City – 2015

Central Park’s history began in the 1850s as New York City sought a large public green space, leading to the winning “Greensward Plan” by Olmsted and Vaux to create a naturalistic landscape, involving massive earth-moving, blasting, and planting, and resulting in the park’s 1858-1876 construction on land that displaced communities like Seneca Village. It opened in the 1860s, becoming an iconic symbol of urban respite and recreation, and was revitalized in the 1980s by the Central Park Conservancy, making it a world-renowned urban park. 

Central Park experiences significant light pollution from NYC’s omnipresent urban glow, creating a bright, whitish dome that obscures stars, disrupting wildlife and human sleep, though some darker spots like the Great Lawn offer slightly better, but still limited, views compared to truly dark skies, highlighting the park’s role as a “green lung” fighting pollution but still enveloped by artificial light.