The squatters' settlements in the Park were surrounded by swamps, and overgrown with briers, vines, and thickets.

The soil that covered the rocky surface was unfit for cultivation.

Here and there were stone quarries and stagnant pools.

In this wilderness lived the squatters, in little shanties and huts made of boards picked up along the river fronts and often pieced out with sheets of tin, obtained by flattening cans.
Some occupants paid ten dollars and twenty-five dollars rent, but the majority paid nothing.

Three stone buildings, two brick buildings, eighty-five or ninety frame houses, one rope-walk and about two hundred shanties, barns, stables, piggeries, and bone-factories, appear in a census made just before Central Park was begun.