Petition to twin Birkenhead Park with New York’s Central Park

Birkenhead Park is 175 years old today and was the inspiration for the design of Central Park in New York.

The 140 acre Birkenhead Park was designed by Joseph Paxton and opened on 5 April 1847 by Lord Morpeth and thousands of people attended the ceremony. It is generally acknowledged as the first publicly funded civic park in the world.

New York’s Central Park is an urban park in New York City. It is the most visited urban park in the United States, with an estimated 42 million visitors annually, and is the most filmed location in the world.

The design of Central Park in New York was laid out by Frederick Law Olmsted who was inspired by his 1850 visit to Birkenhead Park, meaning that links between the two urban parks have been there since the beginning.

Sign the petition here: https://www.change.org/p/wirral-council-twin-birkenhead-park-wirral-with-central-park-new-york

On his first visit to Birkenhead Park, F. L. Olmsted said that “all this magnificent pleasure-ground is entirely, unreservedly, and for ever the people’s own”

Olmsted coined the term ‘the People’s Garden’ and he would eventually go on to design Central Park in New York, based on the social and economic models of Birkenhead Park.

Doug Blonsky, President and CEO of Central Park New York visited Birkenhead Park in 2013, remarking that “without Birkenhead Park, there would be no Central Park and without Central Park, there would be no New York City.” This was a welcome reminder of the far-reaching influence that Birkenhead Park and its designers have had on other parts of the world.

The idea of “twinning” the parks will not only officially commemorate the inseparable links, striking similarities, and shared vision between the two parks, and the 175th anniversary of Birkenhead Park but will also build links between the two districts that “came of age” at the same time during the 19th century.

You can sign the petition by visiting this link: https://www.change.org/p/wirral-council-twin-birkenhead-park-wirral-with-central-park-new-york

You can find out more about Birkenhead Park here: https://birkenhead-park.org.uk/