The last Olmsted and Vaux collaboration, dedicated to Andrew Jackson Downing
Robinson Avenue and Carpenter Avenue, Newburgh, NY 12550
Age
All Ages
Cost
Free
Free public park.
Access
Wheelchair OK
Rolling 35-acre park with paved paths and unpaved trails; some slopes to the highest point
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1889 · Olmsted and Vaux design (their last collaboration) · Memorial to Andrew Jackson Downing · Historic Newburgh public landscape
Downing Park in Newburgh, New York was designed in 1889 by Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux. The 35-acre park was a gift from the designers to the City of Newburgh, with the condition that it be named for their mentor Andrew Jackson Downing, a Newburgh native and pioneering landscape architect who died in a Hudson River steamboat accident in 1852. Downing was the editor of the influential nineteenth-century journal The Horticulturist and was a foundational figure in American landscape design.
Olmsted's connection to Newburgh dated to 1851, when he traveled to the city to meet with Downing in pursuit of writing assignments for The Horticulturist. Downing's encouragement helped launch Olmsted's career as a landscape writer and, eventually, as the designer of Central Park and many other major American public landscapes. The Downing Park commission was the last collaboration between Olmsted and Vaux, and the sons of both designers, John Charles Olmsted and Downing Vaux, completed construction work into the 1890s after additional land acquisitions allowed the full plan to be implemented.
The park opened to the public in 1897 after three years of construction. Its original features included a pond, a band shell, and an observatory designed by Downing Vaux on the park's highest point, commanding views of the Hudson River. Downing Park has been administered as a public park by the City of Newburgh since its opening and is recognized by the Olmsted Network and the National Park Service as a significant Olmsted-and-Vaux landscape.
Sources
Local oral tradition holds that the figure of a young boy is occasionally seen seated near the edge of the Downing Park pond after dark. Accounts circulated in Newburgh-area ghost-story compilations describe the figure as crying and, in some versions, accompanied by the sound of bubbles in the water as if someone were trying to breathe. A variant of the account holds that the figure cries out when a child approaches the water's edge after dusk.
No historical record of a specific drowning has been documented in the park's official history or in available newspaper indexes consulted for this entry. The story should be understood as folk tradition rather than documented event. The park is a busy and well-used public space; visitors who wish to learn more about the park's documented history should consult the Olmsted Network or the National Park Service entry on the site.
Explore the 35-acre Downing Park, designed in 1889 by Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux as their last collaboration. The park was a gift to the city, named for Andrew Jackson Downing, a Newburgh-born landscape architect who died in a Hudson River steamboat accident in 1852.
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