4. Central Park

Central Park is the largest and most important public park in Manhattan. It extends for about 4 km and has an area of 340 hectares. The park includes lakes, ice rinks, fountains, playgrounds, bicycle paths and other facilities. 

When it was built in the 1840s, the park was far away from the city’s centre. Some of it was farming area, another part was swampy, wet land that had to be laid dry. It took 20,000 workers more than 15 years to remove thousands of trees and complete the park.



Central Park
Image:  Ingfbruno, CC BY-SA 3.0,
via Wikimedia Commons



Words

  • area = size
  • complete = finish
  • extend = to reach from one end to the other
  • facilities = objects of use
  • fountain = a structure in a garden or a park from which water is pushed up into the air
  • ice rink = an area where they make ice, so that you can go skating
  • include = to have in it
  • remove = here: cut down
  • swampy = wet, muddy ground