In Uzbekistan, there's growing discussion about cities needing more than newly landscaped lots. People need full-fledged public parks, open to residents and shielded from construction.

One of the most celebrated examples of how such a space can be conceived and built lies in the heart of New York City. Central Park reads as a natural landscape, but nearly every element within it is the product of deliberate work by architects, engineers, and gardeners.

Gazeta photojournalist Evgeniy Sorochin spent several hours walking the length of the park, capturing its main spaces and defining details.

By the 1840s, New York was growing rapidly. Irish and German immigrants were arriving in increasing numbers, joining an already diverse population. Descendants of Dutch, English, French, Scottish, and Scandinavian settlers, along with African Americans and Jews, had already established themselves in the city.

As the city grew denser, the shortage of public space became increasingly apparent. Some of the parks and squares that existed at the time were private, accessible only to New York's wealthier residents.

Journalists, architects, and civic reformers objected to this state of affairs. They urged the city to establish a large public park, a space open to all, regardless of income or background.

Central Park took 16 years to construct, beginning in 1858, with a workforce exceeding 20,000 people. They leveled hills, drained swamps, and used gunpowder to blast through protruding rock outcrops, reshaping the terrain to match the architects' plans.

Concealing the city within the park itself constituted one of the central engineering challenges. Four transverse roads, accommodating east-west traffic at 66th, 79th, 86th, and 96th Streets, were sunk below ground and screened by embankments and dense plantings. Someone crossing a lawn just a few feet above cannot see what's happening below.

The same principle — keeping one kind of movement hidden from another — shaped the rest of the park's infrastructure. Thirty bridges and arches were built. Some separate pedestrian, equestrian, and vehicular traffic so the flows never converge; others serve no purpose beyond the view they offer. They are made from a range of materials, including cast iron, granite, stone, brick, and wood — each selected to harmonize with its surrounding scenery.

The park's distinctiveness stands out against the Manhattan grid surrounding it. That layout dates to the early 19th century. It is rational and efficient, but largely indifferent to the island's original hills and streams. Central Park became its most significant exception, a landscape of winding paths and natural forms in place of straight lines.

Between 2008 and 2010, nature writer Edward Barnard and designer and birder Ken Chaya worked on Central Park Entire, a detailed, illustrated guide-map to the park's trees and landscapes.

Over two and a half years, they surveyed the park on foot, documenting each tree by hand. In the end, they mapped nearly all 20,000 of them. The printed edition was published in 2010. An interactive version is available as a mobile app.

Central Park is sometimes called the largest outdoor art museum in the world. The founders initially rejected the European tradition of decorating parks with statues. Bethesda Terrace became the exception. This architectural complex — a plaza, staircases, a fountain, and an arcade — was conceived from the outset as the park's principal venue for public art.

At the center of this space stands a fountain crowned by Emma Stebbins's sculpture, Angel of the Waters. It references a biblical account of water's healing power. It also marks the 1842 opening of the Croton Aqueduct, which began supplying New York with clean water.

Bethesda Terrace and its fountain form one of the most recognizable filming locations in cinema. In the final scene of The Avengers (2012), Thor bids farewell to the team before departing for Asgard. In John Wick: Chapter 2, Keanu Reeves's character meets Winston, one of the franchise's key figures. In Home Alone 2, young Kevin feeds the pigeons here.

Another distinctive feature of the complex is the Bethesda Terrace Arcade, a covered passage. Its ceiling is lined with nearly 16,000 encaustic ceramic tiles, arranged in a geometric and floral pattern. The technique involves pressing colored clay into recessed patterns on the tile's surface, then firing it together with the clay.

Encaustic tilework has been known in Europe since the 13th century. It was especially common in medieval England, where it adorned the floors of cathedrals and abbeys. In the 19th century, the English firm Minton revived the tradition, producing encaustic tiles specifically for the Arcade.

Another must-see for film locations is Bow Bridge, an elegant cast-iron bridge over the lake, built in 1862. It appears in Woody Allen's Manhattan and in Enchanted, in the scene where the characters sing and dance atop it. Interest in the bridge surged after Spider-Man 3, where Peter Parker plans to propose to Mary Jane only for her to break up with him instead.

Also worth noting, the park is dotted with memorial plaques, bas-reliefs, and, above all, statues. Private individuals, civic groups, and professional organizations funded many of them through donations.

Immigrant communities commissioned a number of these monuments. They sought to see their own eminent countrymen represented in the park. The German community donated a bust of philosopher and playwright Friedrich Schiller. Scots erected monuments to their national poet, Robert Burns, and to novelist Walter Scott. Italians contributed a bust of the patriot Giuseppe Mazzini. The Irish installed a statue of poet Thomas Moore.

A monument to Polish king Władysław Jagiełło arrived in the park in 1945. It had originally been created for the Polish Pavilion at the 1939 World's Fair. However, Polish-American organizations facilitated its installation here.

Over time, the park evolved into a map, charting New York's cultural and immigrant history.

Visitors can find their way using information kiosks, printed maps, and trailside signage. The most unexpected method, however, involves the lampposts. Each one bears a four-digit code that marks the nearest cross street and indicates which side of the park you're on.

The system originally was created for park employees to locate specific lampposts for repairs. Visitors later adopted it as well. The code can help pinpoint one's location, including in an emergency.

The only place where the system fails is the Ramble. It has no lampposts at all.

Throughout the park, you can find benches to rest. There are more than 9,000 of them, many installed in memory of individuals or donated through the Adopt-a-Bench program.

Central Park draws more than 42 million visitors each year.

People come here to walk and picnic, go for a run, ride bikes or boats, play baseball and other sports.

Twenty-one free playgrounds serve the park's youngest visitors, each with its own design and set of attractions.

The park regularly hosts public events and workshops: summer walks to a secret butterfly garden, chess lectures and tournaments, gardener-led tours of the Conservatory Garden, and introductory birdwatching sessions. Visitors can also take tours of Seneca Village, once New York's largest community of Black homeowners before the park was built.

Most events are free, though some require paid admission. Schedules and details are available on the park's website.