The Upper Mall, Central Park, NYC, NY
The Mall was designed so that a carriage could disgorge its passengers at the south end, then drive round and pick them up again overlooking Bethesda Terrace, whose view of the Lake and Ramble formed the “ultimatum of interest” in Olmsted and Vaux’s vision. With no need for redoubling their steps, fashionable New Yorkers, who in the first decades of the park’s existence drove through it in their carriages but rarely walked in it, had their chance to mingle with the less affluent, a mix that was considered thoroughly “American” and picturesque enough to be illustrated repeatedly in the watercolors of Maurice Prendergast and Ludwig Bemelmans.