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Perhaps the single most important ingredient in the modern restoration of Central Park is the successful public/private partnership between the City of New York/Department of Parks and Recreation and the Central Park Conservancy
MORE SOON......
Central Park is located in Manhattan, between 59th and 110th streets, and between 5th and 8th avenues.
Central Park provides New Yorkers with a much-needed escape from the concrete, noise and traffic that is part of everyday life. What is perhaps most interesting about this 843-acre haven is that none of it originally existed where it now stands.
The park is entirely manufactured and required 10 million cartloads of stone and earth to fill the area. Over 500,000 trees and shrubs were planted here and provide shelter to a surprising variety of wildlife. The Central Park Wildlife Conservation Center is home to over 100 species of animals from three different climate zones: the Tropics, the Polar Circle, and the California Coast. The Ramble is a section of the park with over 250 species of birds because of its strategic location on the Atlantic Migratory path.
Concerts are regularly held within the park, and visitors can find places to enjoy everything from chess to baseball. In the winter, Wollman Rink, restored by Donald Trump, provides a place for ice skaters to enjoy a crisp afternoon while practicing their spins and entertaining the many onlookers. Numerous celebrities have apartments overlooking Central Park; and, like singer Madonna who often jogs here, add to the variety of attractions found within the park’s borders.
2.THE MALL:
3.BETHESDA TERRACE;
4.THE LAKE: The Lake is possibly the most photographed area of Central Park. A typical summer day will find sunbathers on the south end and couples in the verandas surrounding the west side. There is almost always a photographer taking a picture looking down on the lake from atop the Ramble.
You can often find people enjoying the water in rented rowboats from the Loeb Boathouse, and dogs barkng at the ducks just out of harms way.
At 22 acres, the Lake is Central Park's largest body of water excluding the Reservoir. Because of the many twists and turns in its shoreline, however, it seems much larger. Olmsted and Vaux created the Lake out of a large swamp; they intended it to provide boating in the summer and ice skating in the winter. In December 1858, while the rest of Central Park was under construction, the Lake was opened for ice-skating. The opening happened to coincide with a long string of hard winters in the City and sparked an instant craze for the sport. According to one account in the Park's Annual Report, as many as 40,000 people skated on the Lake in one day. Nature couldn't always be counted on to satisfy the demand for good ice, so Wollman Rink was opened in 1951 and the Lake closed for skating.
5.LOEB BOATHOUSE:
6.STRAWBERRY FIELDS: John Lennon was murdered in December of 1980 in front of his home near Central Park. Thousands of mourners hung flowers and messages outside his home and in this section of Central Park where Lennon would often play with his son, Sean. The Strawberry Fields were created in Lennon's honor, provided by funds from his wife, Yoko Ono.
7.BELVEDERE CASTLE: Perched on Vista Rock, the highest natural elevation in the Park, is Belvedere Castle. Belvedere … Italian for "beautiful view," offers visitors just that. You can look down into the Delacorte Theater to the left, home to summertime Public Theater productions of Shakespeare and cutting edge interpretations of new and classic plays. Straight ahead is the newly-restored, 55-acre Great Lawn, once one of the Park's original reservoirs; now it offers softball fields, basketball courts, and an abundance of sunbathers. And below, replete with a boulder-strewn shoreline, is Turtle Pond.
What about the Castle itself? Belvedere was originally designed by Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux as a Victorian "folly." In architectural terms, a folly was a spot of playfulness, a fantasy building - a miniature Greek or Roman temple or a pint-sized Gothic castle - that offered a dash of the unexpected in a carefully calculated pastoral landscape. The Castle originally was only a shell, with open window frames, and doorways, really an elaborate scenic overlook.
Today Belvedere Castle has true windows and doors and is home to the Henry Luce Nature Observatory, run by the Central Park Conservancy. Inside are simple displays that show how naturalists observe the world to learn how it works, and how they share their findings. There are telescopes and microscopes and skeletons and feathers - all designed to pique the curiosity of young visitors.
On the Castle's second floor, papier mâché reproductions of birds often seen in Central Park roost in the branches of a plywood tree. (Few people know that Central Park is one of the country's richest birdwatching areas, located on the Atlantic flyway.) By pushing a button on a recording box, visitors also can listen to the particular songs belonging to the birds in the "tree." Budding naturalists can borrow backpacks that contain binoculars, reference material, maps, and notepaper, and take off to explore either the Ramble (home to many species of birds), or to study aquatic life at the edge of Turtle Pond.
8.DELACORTE THEATER:
9.GREAT LAWN:
10.RESERVOIR:
11.THE ZOO:Central Park Zoo and Tisch Children's Zoo In a steamy rain forest or in an icy Antarctic penguin habitat, the Wildlife Center at the Central Park Zoo introduces visitors to fascinating animals - from tiny leafcutter ants to tremendous polar bears. Explore the Tropic Zone, a beautiful tree filled rain forest environment, the Temperate Territory, where sea lions and monkeys frolic, or the Polar Circle, where you can watch polar bears swim underwater thanks to a plexiglass wall. If you are visiting with kids, don't miss the wonderful Tisch Children's Zoo, designed especially for children age 6 and under, letting little animal lovers meet gentle creatures up close. This "Enchanted Forest" features a petting zoo with goats, sheep, cows, pigs and other furry animal friends. Admission to the children's zoo is included in the price of admission to the main zoo.
Through the American Zoo and Aquarium Association's (AZA) Species Survival Program, the zoo is actively involved in helping endangered species, including rare tamarin monkeys, Wyoming toads, thick-billed parrots, and red pandas. Year-round education classes and innovative public programs - including the zoo's "Wildlife Theater" -- encourage all ages to learn more about our natural world, and become involved in its protection.
The Central Park Zoo's five acres seem tiny compared to the over five hundred acre sprawl of the Bronx Zoo. Like the Prospect Park Wildlife Center, this zoo is arranged in a circle around a sea lion pool; a pathway that takes you past the outdoor pens that have monkeys, otters, water birds, and polar bears. The indoor exhibits are the tropical and polar ecosystems, with wildly colored jungle birds, bats, more monkeys, snakes, polar bears, penguins and puffins. The staff gives talks about the animals at various times during the day, which are posted on signs in front of the exhibits. You can also see some feedings if you get to the zoo at the right time.
The Tisch Children’s Zoo, just across 65th Street from the Central Park Zoo, is a petting zoo with mostly farm animals; pigs, cows, sheep and goats as well as rabbits, turtles and some waterfowl. You may see staff members dressed as frogs, turtles or various other animals. Dispensing machines here give you a handful of feed for fifty cents and the animals will come up and eat it right out of your hand.
12.CONVERSVATORY GARDEN:
13.BANDSHELL:
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