In the decades after Olmsted’s death, many of the parks he created were neglected and misused. For Central Park in New York City, the low point came in the 1970s. The Central Park Conservancy was founded 1980 to bring the park back. Its mission statement: To make the park clean, safe, and beautiful. By the late 1980s, Olmsted and Vaux’s original vision for Central Park had been largely restored.