Take the case of skating, for instance. Int the 18th and 18th century, skating was seen as a romantic pursuit where the timorous girl skated whilst leaning on the shoulder of her assistant male. Initially, a separate pond was planned for women and unwelcome men were banned. Park officers maintained 'perfect order' and this included exclusion of all public flirting. How different the park has become today! Not only would the so-called flirtation of then not be considered so now, but contemporary displays of overt love including 'necking' may well have caused their perpetrators to be jailed or penalized in some way. Even the entire official way in which the park was originally organized with paramilitary salutes totally contradicts contemporary protocol. Today, manners are a relaxed as can be with all demarcation broken down between class and culture and the park being more of a public than a private space.

Even enforcement of care of the park environment is less strict today than it was then. A person, for instance, who walked across freshly planted grass was picked up the police despite the fact that the was a supreme court judge and others who picked shrubs were arrested.

Some of the rules, it is true, a re existent today as then such as not defacing trees, shrubs, and plants. And others simply would not occur today, such...

Nonetheless, a great many other intransigences have lost their strictness, such as the prohibition against cursing, peddling, hawking, (ice-cream selling, for instance, would be disallowed), gambling, or fortune telling. The activity, in fact, that the park has become most famous for, namely political public oratory and railing would likely have been penalized in the 18th, if not, t he 19th century.
It would not have been considered 'manners' to do so.

Conclusion

In essence what we see her, therefore, is that constructs change from historical period to historical period very much hinging on the norms and conventions of the people at a particular period. Whilst the founders of the park worried that people may flout the basic decencies of mannered life by indulging in dissipations such as boxing and wrestling, such exercises have become de rigeur today and are even alluded as healthy exercise for park goers. Skating has become a mixed sport. Otherwise would be considered ridiculous. People are encouraged to intermingle and to be as free as possible with their behavior -- within certain limits of course, but these limits have drastically relaxed to what they were in the past.

Source

Blackmar "The park and the people"