It Begins At The Merchants' Gate Mystery Cache
It Begins At The Merchants' Gate
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Difficulty:
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Terrain:
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Size: 
(micro)
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Listed coordinates are for the "Merchants' Gate," one of 20 gated entrances to Central Park. Each gate was named by Olmsted and Vaux, the park's designers, for the type of person they anticipated entering the park from that area. The cache is not there, but is a short distance away. To find the actual cache, you will need to solve the puzzle below.
At the time of Central Park's design the job of the common merchant was undergoing a sea change in terms of how it did business. Olmsted cited the "banker, broker, importer, trader, agent, director, and store keeper" as those folded into the general term "Merchant" used for this gate, and all of these occupation were rushing to incorporate the new technologies and methods that were becoming available to them. Railroads, faster ships, new routes, but perhaps most importantly the telegram. The ability to send what must have seemed like "instantaneous" communication gave merchants to the ability to direct sales and purchases in a much more direct way than ever before, and gave them control over their agents in the field in a way that could not have been anticipated before that.
In the spirit of one of these merchants I present to you a telegram, providing all the information that you would need to act as a merchant's agent and complete this transaction.
Good luck!
"The Gates of Central Park" has been awarded BEST CACHE SERIES for 2009 by the Metro New York Geocaching Society! Thanks to the members, and to everyone who has found these caches in the past year!
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
[Puzzle] Vgf whfg ohfvarff
[Cache] Ybbx ba Tbbtyr Rnegu orsber lbh tb. TCF vf njshy ng guvf fcbg. Orjner gur qbbezna. VG VF ABG ZNTARGVP. Gurer vf n uvag jvguva gur chmmyr. Ybbx ng gur fdhner pbeare, abg gur ebhaq.