Andrew Jackson Downing - Legacy

Legacy

Downing influenced not only Vaux but also landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted; the two men met at Downing's home in Newburgh. In 1858, their joint design, the Greensward Plan, was selected in a design competition for the new Central Park in New York City. In 1860, Olmsted and Vaux proposed that a bust of Downing be placed in the new park as an "appropriate acknowledgment of the public indebtedness to the labors of the late A. J. Downing, of which we feel the Park itself is one of the direct results." The monument was never built in the park, but a memorial honoring Downing stands near the Smithsonian main building in Washington, D.C. Botanist John Torrey named the genus Downingia after Downing.

In 1889, the city of Newburgh commissioned a park design from Olmsted and Vaux. They accepted, on the condition that it be named after their former mentor. It opened in 1897, called "Downing Park". It was their last collaboration.

One of the only surviving structures known to have been designed by Downing is the cottage at Springside (Matthew Vassar Estate) in Poughkeepsie, New York. The cottage and the estate's gardens designed by Downing are a National Historic Landmark. The Cedarcliff Gatehouse is also believed to have been designed by him.

Jackson’s wife and friends of the family put up a monument to Jackson in the shape of an urn that was at his home in Newburgh, New York. They inscribed on it words that he had written "Plant spacious parks in your cities, and loose their gates as wide as the morning, to the whole people." The Downing Urn is now in the Enid A. Haupt Garden in the Smithsonian.

The residence Brambleworth located at Bedford, New York, was listed on the National Register of Historic Places as part of The Woodpile historic district in 1992.

Another of Andrew Jackson Downing's surviving structures, and one three of Downing's earliest examples of the Italian Victorian Style, the "Robert Dodge Mansion" still stands today in Georgetown, D.C., however has been significantly altered from when originally constructed The "Robert Dodge Mansion" was an exact opposite of the "Francis Dodge Mansion" (aside from the windows and fenestration/decoration)ornaments. It is also noteworthy to note that Downing's first buildings completed in this Italian Victorian Style were made for the Dodge family.