. >> host: frederick olmsted and his importance in america's public spaces. >> guest: i would say he created with the help of an english architect who would forget to mention, i think the greatest piece of art of the american 19th century in central park. he was not trained to do this. he was trained as a gentleman farmer. then he was put in charge of the relief operations for wounded soldiers in the civil war, american sanitary commission which became the red cross. skilled in organizing thousands of people and resources and so forth. they created at central park to a kind of incredible demonstration of what was going on in america at that time. central park looks like nature, but it is the recreation, landscape scale replica of a nature that was being destroyed. men and island and new york city are this incredible raging conflagration of industrial and financial power which quite scared americans. americans have been trained to think of ourselves as an agrarian people live on farms and small towns. a virtue and simplicity. yet in the 19th century we are confronted with a different