With over eight hundred sprawling acres in the middle of one of the world’s most densely populated cities, Central Park is not only an oasis of calm and greenery, but an urban masterpiece. New Canaan Library is pleased to welcome historian Sara Cedar Miller, author of Before Central Park, who will discuss her soon to be published book and the two and a half centuries of history that predated the creation of Central Park.

Designed in the mid-1800s by the landscape architects Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux, Central Park is a model for city parks worldwide. But what existed in the area before it became an iconic urban park? Sara Cedar Miller, historian emerita of the Central Park Conservancy, will discuss her book, an authoritative account of the history of the area. From the first Dutch family to settle on the land through the political crusade to create America’s first major urban park, Sara Cedar Miller covers wide territory, including Indigenous hunters, enslaved people and enslavers, American patriots and British loyalists, the Black landowners of Seneca Village, Irish pig farmers, tavern owners, Catholic sisters, Jewish protesters, and more.
Sara Cedar Miller is the historian emerita of the Central Park Conservancy, which she first joined as a photographer in 1984. Her books include Before Central Park (Columbia University Press, June 2022), Central Park: An American Masterpiece (2003), Strawberry Fields: Central Park’s Memorial to John Lennon (2011) and Seeing Central Park: The Official Guide (updated and expanded edition, 2020).