What role did public spaces play in late nineteenth-century popular culture?
1 Answer
In the larger cities it was almost critical. In small town America, it was not nearly so important.
Explanation:
The city of Boston has a series of green areas known as the Emerald Necklace. This is a series of green areas designed by Frederick Law Olmstead in 1837 to extend from the existing Boston Gardens and looping around the city in the shape of a necklace.
Taking a page from Boston, New York City hired Olmstead to lay out New York's Central Park.
To this day cities are what is called meteorologically "heat magnets." That is, they retain heat much longer than they countryside. If you look at old photos of cities you will invariably see city sidewalks filled with people during summer months. That is because air conditioning, to include fans, simply did not exist and the people escaped to a cooler outside.
In short, cities realize that their residents needed a place to go. Central Park opened its zoo in 1864 while Boston opened up the Franklin Park Zoo in 1912, Franklin Park being a part of the Emerald Necklace.
