By the early 1860s, much of Central Park had opened, particularly the miles of drives meant for recreational carriage rides.
But with only five percent of city residents able to afford a carriage, these drives were mostly used by the very richest New Yorkers—who established an afternoon high-society ritual called the carriage parade.
In what could be considered a foreshadowing of our current celebrity-obsessed culture, poor and middle-class residents often turned out to watch, gawk, and critique the procession day after day.
“The great, fashionable carriage parade—so rightly considered one of the notable ‘sights’ of the city—took place between the hours of four and five,” wrote Lloyd R. Morris in Incredible New York.
“To view this, crowds gathered along the walk that bordered the east carriage drive from Fifty-Ninth Street and Fifth Avenue to the Mall.”
“In the continuous procession of equipages you saw everyone who counted: the aristocracy, the new smart set, the parvenus, the celebrities, the deplorably notorious.”
“When taking the air in the Park, many of them preferred to be concealed in their broughams, but some had progressed to public exposure in a landau.”
“Their horses were huge, fat, and slow; their coachmen and footmen, soberly liveried, were elderly; their carriages were funereally black.”
Not everyone was impressed by the spectacle of the new rich and their older counterparts on display in $12,000 carriages. One account had it that German schoolkids through rocks at the carriages.
Walt Whitman “found the carriage parade ‘an impressive, rich, interminable circus on a grand scale, full of action and color,'” wrote Roy Rosenzweig and Elizabeth Blackmar in The Park and the People.
“[But] as he peered through the windows of the richest carriages, he saw ‘faces almost corpse-like, so ashy and listless.'”
For more information on the building and beginning of Central Park, check out New York City in 3D in the Gilded Age.
[Top and second photo: MCNY Collection; third: NYPL Digital Gallery; fourth: MCNY Colletion]
Tags: Carriages in Central Park, Central Park Carriage Parade, East Drive Central Park, Gilded Age New York, New York in the 1860s, Rich New Yorkers, Wealthy Central Park
June 16, 2014 at 2:49 pm |
[…] of our current celebrity-obsessed culture”. This is a great find for New York history nerds. [Ephemeral New York, Via […]
June 20, 2014 at 1:24 pm |
The book party was wonderful and your book is really unique!!
I have some pictures to send you from your reading, but don’t know how to send them to you.
Let me know when you have a minute and I’ll send.
Thanks,
Barbara Bachman
June 20, 2014 at 3:10 pm |
Thanks Barbara, it was wonderful meeting you! You can send photos to ephemeralnewyork -at- gmail. Looking forward to seeing them!
June 20, 2014 at 6:54 pm |
Friday morning links
Have any of our readers read this book? Still Life with Woodpecker The elite “carriage parade” in 1860s Central Park Walmart debuts new clinic concept When Hipsters Go to Church Mistresses are big business in China, where no official is
August 10, 2020 at 7:10 am |
[…] from Central Park. “The Drive, Central Park” was completed in 1905 and likely shows the East Drive, long the site of carriage parades among the […]
August 10, 2020 at 12:54 pm |
[…] from Central Park. “The Drive, Central Park” was completed in 1905 and likely shows the East Drive, long the site of carriage parades among the […]
September 20, 2021 at 9:21 am |
through rocks??? or threw rocks?