How Cars Came to Central Park
BY KENNETH M. COUGHLIN

In 1899, automobiles were the playthings of New York's affluent. But for at least two years, drivers did not have access to Central Parks carriage drive. For the previous 30 years, the drive was the setting for an elegant afternoon carriage parade of the wealthy who came to the park to see and be seen. On June 30,1899, the New York Times reported that a man had applied for permission to "run an automobile in Central Park." The request was denied by George C. Clausen, President of the Park Board, who,"said that it was not thought proper to use the park for such a vehicle, which might frighten and otherwise be a disfigurement or annoyance."

A local lawyer decided to challenge Clausens automobile ban head-on. On Friday, October 27,1899, at the wheel of his electric powered "automobile victoria-phaeton," Winslow E. Buzby entered the park at Fifth Avenue and 59th Street He was promptly stopped by a park policeman and informed that automobiles were not permitted. Replying that he knew of no such law, Buzby continued on, and was arrested.

Buzby's case was heard four days later by a police magistrate whose last name chanced to be Olmsted. The case boiled down to Magistrate Olmsted's reading of a ordinance enacted in 1873 which stated, Me drive shall be used only by persons in pleasure carriages, on bicycles, or on horseback." Interpreting "pleasure carriages!' to include automobiles, Olmsted ruled that Buzby had not violated the 1873 ordinance.

Following the magistrate's decision, Clausen of the Park Board told a Times reporter, "the Parks Department ... would be blamable if it did not put first the protection of the public and the protection of the Park features of peace and quiet and second the matter of travel and transportation." To deal with future Buzbys, the Park Board quickly changed its rules specifically to ban "horseless carriages" and "motor wagons" from the park drive except by permission from the Parks Department. At the same time, however, the Board decided it was time to hold a public hearing on the question of "Should Automobiles Be Allowed in Central Park?"

The hearing took place on November 9 in the Central Park Arsenal Debate centered on whether or not automobiles would startle horses on the park drive. The hearing apparently persuaded Clausen that there was little risk of disrupting the horses, because within a few days he issued the first official permit allowing a car owner to drive in Central Park. 'Mere is every indication," Clausen announced, "that in a short time the driver of the ... automobile will be allowed to join the procession of wealth, beauty, and fashion in Central Park."

Mr. R.A.C. Smith received the first permit. His drive through Central Park began grandly, surrounded by five mounted policemen and Clausen in the passenger seat. The drive ended abruptly, however, when the car broke down and Smith and Clausen had to walk home.

Clausen had expected that automobiles would enter the park only to take their place in "the procession of wealth, beauty, and fashion" on the park drive. But as the car became an increasingly common mode of transportation, drivers began to use the drive for the sole purpose of bypassing congestion on the adjacent city streets, thus stretching Magistrate Olmsted's reading of the term "pleasure carriage" beyond recognition.

Kenneth M. Coughlin Is a New York City-based writer.

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