Although New York is the most populous and densely settled of all American cities, more than 1,000 individual parks with more than 37,000 acres of parkland are available to the public. The creation of Central Park between 1857 and 1875 affected the development of public open space throughout the United States. Almost all subsequent U.S. park designers imitated some or all of the features found in Central Park. American landscape architects Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux designed the 341-hectare (843-acre) park, located in the center of Manhattan. It has numerous playgrounds, a children's zoo, 8 km (5 mi) of bridle paths, bicycling and jogging lanes, a large reservoir, a sailboat pond, two ice-skating rinks, tennis courts, baseball diamonds, a swimming pool, and a lake for row-boating. On summer evenings, there are free band concerts, free dances, and free nightly performances of plays in the Delacorte Theatre, an amphitheater that seats 2,300. Of the park's many monuments the most famous is the 3,500-year-old Egyptian obelisk, known as Cleopatra's Needle.
Two of the largest parks, Pelham Bay Park, with 862 hectares (2,130 acres), and Van Cortlandt Park, with 464 hectares (1,146 acres), are in the Bronx. The Bronx also has New York's largest zoo and largest botanical garden, both located in the 292-hectare (721-acre) Bronx Park. The largest park in Queens is Flushing Meadows-Corona, with 509 hectares (1,257 acres). It was the site of two world's fairs. Brooklyn's Prospect Park and Botanic Garden are two favorite retreats in that borough. Beaches fringe many of the city's parks and recreation areas, such as those in Pelham Bay, Rockaway, Coney Island, and South Beach.
