The last great work of acclaimed landscaped designers Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux was celebrated Saturday in Newburgh.

People gathered in Downing Park, Saturday, to celebrate Olmsted’s 200th birthday with songs and speeches and a chance to enjoy nature the way the park’s creators had intended.

Anne “Didi” Petri, managing director of Olmstead 200 and President and CEO of The National Association of Olmstead Parks, noted that it was just one of hundreds of parks that Olmstead and Vaux had created from scratch, including more famous examples in Boston in New York City.
“They designed the contours and developed the paths and vistas,” Peri said. “They designed it because they believed that people who lived in cities needed a place to relax.”

They designed it to honor their mentor, Newburgh Native Andrew Jackson Downing, the acclaimed architect and landscape designer whose credits include the grounds of the Smithsonian in Washington DC. Downing died tragically in a boating accident on the Hudson River in 1852. He was only 36.

The park that bears his name was dedicated in 1897, when Newburgh Mayor Benjamin O’Dell carried out a proposal to make 35 acres of the city’s high ground, “a place of beauty for all,” in the words of current Mayor Torrance Harvey.