Though the Green-Wood might not be the first to come to mind when New Yorkers think of parks, it was one of city's first open green spaces.

Founded in 1838 as the city's churchyards began to fill up, the cemetery was intended as a rural cemetery. Inspired by Mount Auburn Cemetary in Cambridge, MA, Green-Wood was created in the English Naturalistic style of landscaping. As Green-Wood grew, the city took notice. New Yorkers would come to stroll (as they do today) between its many monuments and beautiful trees.

Green-Wood's popularity revealed such a desire for green space that it directly inspired two of New York's most iconic parks.

Central Park was one of them. Manhattan had been clamoring for a large public park since the 1840s, plans for the park began in 1856 when Mayor Fernando Wood hired Egbert Viele to survey the site and propose a plan. Unfortunately for Viele, in 1857, the Central Park Commission proposed a competition for park plans. Frederick Law Olmstead and Calvert Vaux won with the "Greensward Plan".

While other plans had intended to incorporate Central Park with the City, Olmstead and Vaux used Green-Wood as an inspiration. Delineating clear markers and only allowing crosstown traffic through sunken transverse roads. They intended the park to be pastoral and asymmetrical, highlighting natural beauty.

Though work began in 1857, it would be decades before Central Park was completed. It even continued through the Civil War, with the music stand, Bethesda Terrace, and the Casino all being completed during that period. However, by then Olmstead and Vaux had both resigned, having clashed with Andrew Haswell Green, they moved on to work on another park: Prospect Park.

The park that would become Prospect Park was already underway by the time Olmstead and Vaux took over. The City of Brooklyn, watching the construction of Central Park, had wanted its own parks and began acquiring land for them. Egbert Viele had even drawn up a plan for Mount Prospect Park. However, the Civil War brought the plans to a halt. During the delay in 1865, Brooklyn Park's commissioner James Stranahan asked the recently unemployed Vaux to examine the existing plans.

Vaux's 1865 plans reimagined the park on a much grander scale, and supported by Stranahan, pushed for the purchasing of a considerably larger amount of land to the park's south. The unfortunate Viele was replaced again by Vaux and Olmstead (who Vaux quickly recruited.)

The pair shaped the park with the same naturalistic style on a grander scale. Stranahan supported the two throughout the process raising funding for construction and securing land. Opening in segments, it quickly became beloved by Brooklynites. Calvert and Vaux ended their work on the park in 1871, but by 1873 it was substantially complete.