town of Birkenhead near Liverpool, was visited in 1850 by the American Frederick Law Olmsted who noted that it was 'enjoyed equally by all classes 'whereas in democratic America there was nothing to be thought comparable with People's Garden. Olmsted was that time a journalist. But in 1858 he won, in collaboration with the architect Calvert Vaux, the commission to lay out New York Central Park on an site at what then the north end of Manhattan's rectangular grid of streets. The area, far larger than Birkenhead's 6 aeres, permitted the creation of a more varied landscape of seemingly wild woodlands, lakes,hills and plains with an innovatory separation of footpaths from carriage-ways by means of bridges and tunnels. It was intended, Olmsted wrote, in a directly remedial way to enable men to better resust the harmful