Author Description

Updated July 2019. This 84-page book is the history of the beautiful view of the Empire State Building bisecting the Civil War memorial Arch in Brooklyn's Grand Army Plaza. Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux ceded control of Central Park to their detractors and then designed their own park - the Brooklyn Park. Their first step was to create the Plaza in 1865 and define its axis aimed at exactly where the Empire State Building would be built 65 years later. "What artist so noble... directs the shadows of a picture so great that Nature shall be employed upon it it for generations, before the work he has arranged for her shall realize his intentions." - Olmsted, 1852 This book contains 24 full page photos of the View and a section on the Concert Grove alignment, the Lincoln statue returning to Grand Army Plaza, and "Book Two of the Incomplete Collection" - 24 original drawings and paintings unrelated to the Mirador.