Central Park is an urban park in New York City between the Upper West and Upper East Sides of Manhattan. It is the fifth

largest park in the city, covering 843 acres (341 ha). It is the most visited urban park in the United States,

with an estimated 42 million visitors annually as of 2016, and is the most filmed location in the world.

Following proposals for a larger park in Manhattan during the 1840s, it was approved in 1853 to cover 778 acres (315 ha).

In 1857, landscape architects Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux won a design competition for the park with their

"Greensward Plan". Construction began in the same year; Existing structures, including a majority-Black settlement

called Seneca Village, were confiscated and ransacked through eminent domains. The first areas of the park were

opened to the public in late 1858. Additional land at the northern end of Central Park was purchased in 1859, and the

park was completed in 1876. Commissioner Robert Moses began a program to clean up Central Park in the 1930s,

following a period of decline in New York City's parks in the early 20th century. The Central Park Conservancy, created in

1980 to counter further decline in the late 20th century, renovated many parts of the park starting in the 1980s.