Central park is located in the middle-upper Manhattan, on 778 acres of city-owned land.  In 1857 Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux competed and won a design competition to improve the land called “Greensward Plan”.  The park opened the winter of 1858 and grew to it’s current size of 843 acres in 1873.  Today Central park consists of a zoo, several playgrounds, tennis, pools, ponds, reservoir, carousel, museum, theater, and miles of walking trails.