I couldn't help myself, I'm bringing you Part 4 of the Central Park saga to help wrap up this coverage. In this episode we dive into the first private attempt at bringing a private institution to the park when the wealthy elite wanted to start the first city zoo in Central Park. We take a look at the Central Park menagerie started by the public as they donated live animals which would eventually become the Central Park Zoo and how a hoax in 1874 claiming mass escapes of animals from the zoo started by Pete the Rhinoceros would lead to widespread panic and contribute to the elephant and donkey becoming the political symbols of America's two major political parties. Watch out, Pete might still be in the sewers of New York! We'll finally have playgrounds in the park, we'll talk about the 1956 "Battle of Central Park" when a group of mothers, children, and baby carriages stood in front of a bulldozer to protect their grassy knoll and the first political rally in Central Park.

Complete Episode Transcript:

https://www.nydarksidepodcast.com/episode-6-9-dark-history-of-central-park/episode-9-transcript

The Majority of the information for this episode comes from: Rosenzweig, R., & Blackmar, E. (1992). The Park and the People: A History of Central Park. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.

Links for the Central Park Zoo Hoax:

Newspaper Article: https://fultonhistory.com/Newspaper%2014/New%20York%20NY%20Herald/New%20York%20NY%20Herald%201874/New%20York%20NY%20Herald%201874%20-%203503.pdf

Additional information on the Central Park Zoo Hoax: http://hoaxes.org/archive/permalink/the_central_park_zoo_escape/

The complete resource list can be found at https://www.nydarksidepodcast.com/episode-6-9-dark-history-of-central-park

The intro theme for this podcast are sections of Nightmare Machine by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com), CC BY 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons