HM, SO YOU thought Central Park is the largest park in New York City?
Not so. Pelham Bay Park, originally owned by the West India Company in Amsterdam, is three times its size.
Greenbelt on Staten Island, named after the Dutch States General parliament in The Hague, is twice the size of Central Park.
Van Cortlandt Park, named after the Kortland families of Alblasserdam and Wijk bij Duurstede, is also larger. And even Flushing Meadows/Corona Park, named after Vlissingen, is bigger than Central Park.
Central Park is a small one. Relatively. Construction in the heart of Manhattan required more explosives than the Battle of Gettysburg. It was carried out according to the directions of Egbert Viele, the son of Katelijn Knickerbakker, by then spelled Knickerbocker.
The Knickerbockers hailed from Wijhe in Overijssel, where they actually baked marbles from clay, and Egbert was assigned to map the layout of the future Central Park. Including the small lake on the Harlem neighborhood side, which he named Harlem Meer, in Dutch. That’s how he put it on the map, and that’s how it’s still called.
