Great Lawn and Turtle Pond
40°46′53″N 73°57′59″W / 40.78135°N 73.96648°W
The Great Lawn and Turtle Pond are two connected features of Central Park in Manhattan, New York City, United States. The lawn and pond are located on the site of a former reservoir for the Croton Aqueduct system which was infilled during the early 20th century.
The pond, originally known as Belvedere Lake, abuts Belvedere Castle as well as the Delacorte Theater, and contains a variety of turtles and fish. The lawn is composed of 14 acres (5.7 ha) of oval-shaped land, which is used for sports and concerts.
Description
The lawn and pond occupy the almost flat site of the rectangular, 35-acre (14 ha) Lower Reservoir, which was incorporated into the
Lawn
The Great Lawn is mainly a recreational field, surrounded by an oval walkway.[1] There are eight baseball fields on the Great Lawn (six within the oval walkway and two directly to the north),[4][5][6] as well as a soccer field and four basketball courts.[6]
Pond
The Turtle Pond is located south of the Lawn.[7] Most of the park's turtles live in Turtle Pond, and many of these are former pets that were released into the park.[8][9]
Arthur Ross Pinetum
The Arthur Ross Pinetum, named after philanthropist Arthur Ross, contains 17 species of pine trees across a 4-acre (1.6 ha) area on the northwestern side of the oval.[10][11][12]
History
Site
The Yorkville Reservoir of the Croton Aqueduct system, also known as the Lower Reservoir or the receiving reservoir, was built in 1842 to store the city's drinking water.[13] The community of York Hill was displaced for the creation of the reservoir, and the population moved to Seneca Village to the northwest, which itself was demolished when Central Park was constructed in the 1850s.[13][14] The reservoir was filled to a depth of 34 feet (10 m) starting on June 27, 1842.[15] The reservoir occupied the space between the 79th Street and 86th Street transverse roads,[16] measuring 1,826 by 836 feet (557 by 255 m) with a capacity of at least 150 million U.S. gallons (570,000,000 L).[15] The reservoir was surrounded by a stone retaining wall, a portion of which is still visible near the 86th Street transverse.[13][17]
In
Design
As the
A number of projects in the
These plans were decried as intrusions by park preservationists protecting the Olmstedian rustic plan on the one hand, and as elitist by populist champions of organized recreation facilities, who envisaged playing fields and bath houses for the city's urban poor.[13][26][27] The city approved Hastings's plan in 1917.[28] However, with the growing intensity of World War I, Central Park cycled through five parks commissioners between November 1917 and February 1918, and Hastings's plan was dropped by the administration of mayor John Francis Hylan.[26]
In 1922, Hastings recast his plan as a recreational center and memorial to the soldiers of World War I, which fulfilled both the City Beautiful and recreational demands for the reservoir site.[27] By the mid-1920s, populist groups and newspapers were publicly calling for expansion of recreational space. Notably, the New York Daily News published a series of articles advocating for different reuses of the receiving reservoir.[13][29] The issue became politicized. Hastings's World War I monument proposal, increasingly tied to Hylan's policies, was criticized by many of Hylan's opponents, and lost even more support when Hylan proposed a performing arts center on the site.[30] Hastings stated that the space would be wasted if the memorial plan were to be dropped,[31] and in 1925 the city's Board of Estimate gave preliminary approval to the memorial.[32]
The Central Park Association, one of several groups to advocate for the improvement of Central Park, was created in December 1925.
A third group, the Citizens Union. endorsed the city's proposal to fill in the receiving reservoir.[36] In the meantime, Frederick Law Olmsted's son Frederick Olmsted Jr. worked with Harvard librarian Theodora Kimball Hubbard to compile Frederick Sr.'s papers. The resulting publication invigorated preservationists who wanted to see the reservoir redeveloped as a more natural area. This, combined with mayor Jimmy Walker's increases to park budgets, resulted in a small general cleanup of Central Park, but also saw the cancellation of the memorial.[37]
Construction and opening
The reservoir began to be drained in January 1930.[38] The project required the dumping of 1,000,000 cubic yards (760,000 m3) of dirt into the decommissioned reservoir, which was set to be completed within a year.[39] That April the American Society of Landscape Architects, New York Chapter (ASLA) proposed a sunken meadow and lake within the former reservoir site.[40] In June 1930 the city adopted a plan presented by the ASLA for a great oval of turf, its edges softened by trees planted in clumps within and outside the encircling pedestrian walkway.[37]
Two fenced playgrounds at the northern end[note 2] were to be screened by shrubs and trees. The drainage was collected in a small receiving reservoir at the south end, the predecessor of the present Turtle Pond, which revealed its essentially rectangular shape, in spite of mild waggles in its concrete curbing. Along its southern shore, the steep gradient that had impounded the reservoir was regraded and planted with trees and shrubs to mask its regularity. The former receiving reservoir was filled in with dirt from the construction of Rockefeller Center.[25]: 116
In the meantime, the city teetered on the edge of insolvency during the Great Depression. A "Hooverville" of improvised shacks developed in the dry bed of the reservoir, as the city began dumping fill.[41] The homeless were initially evicted when they tried to move into the site in late 1930, but public sentiment gradually turned to sympathy. The few dozen shacks on the site were allowed to stay through April 1933, when they were evicted.[13][42][43]
Following the destruction of the Hoovertown, parks commissioner John E. Sheehy proposed building running tracks and ball fields on the site of the reservoir.[44] The plan was controversial. It was strongly opposed by preservationists and advocacy groups, who argued that these would ruin the rural character of Central Park as originally envisioned by Olmsted and Vaux.[45][46] The Daily News, on the other hand, supported Sheehy's plan and denounced the objections as classist discrimination, since the opponents of the Sheehy plan were mainly wealthy residents of nearby areas.[47] Sheehy's successor Robert Moses, who would see the ASLA Great Lawn to completion, took office with mayor Fiorello La Guardia in January 1934. Moses replaced Sheehy's plan with his own, which placed large playgrounds and children's recreational facilities on the perimeter of a proposed meadow.[48]
The Great Lawn was essentially completed in 1937. It was planted with pine oaks and European lindens, in the reduced range of trees in the current repertory.[25]: 118 With the installation of children's play structures, the Great Lawn became a children's play area, contrasting with the adults' play area in North Woods and North Meadow.[20][48][49]
Degradation and restoration
The Great Lawn received its baseball diamonds in the 1950s.
In 1987, the Central Park Conservancy proposed renovating Belvedere Lake. This was stymied by the presence of dragonflies in the lake,[50] and the project was later postponed.[51] Belvedere Lake was officially renamed Turtle Pond the same year.[7][13][20] In October 1995, the Conservancy took up the joint project of rehabilitating fifty-five acres of the lawn and its surroundings.[52] The resodding of the Great Lawn commenced in October 1996, at which point officials replaced a 15-acre (6.1 ha) ovoid patch of the Lawn, and nearby areas, with new sod for $18 million.[53] The project was completed the following year.[2][20] The renovation included the installation of 250 automatic water sprinklers and 2,000 new trees,[3] as well as a nature blind to observe the area's wildlife.[20]
The Conservancy also completely drained, re-excavated, and reconfigured Turtle Pond.
Use
In 1996, Great Lawn was used by 12,100 softball games per year, with 250,000 combined players.[53] The following year, it was estimated that 15 million people crossed the Great Lawn every year.[2]
Concerts
Annual concerts by the Metropolitan Opera and the New York Philharmonic started in the 1960s.[55] Several past concerts have supposedly drawn hundreds of thousands of spectators each.[56] The 1980 Elton John concert drew 300,000 attendees, the 1981 Simon and Garfunkel reunion concert more than 500,000, and the 1982 Anti-Nuclear Rally nearly 750,000.[57] Other large concerts include Paul Simon's 1991 concert, which drew 600,000 fans to the Great Lawn,[2] In September 2003, Dave Matthews Band recorded the live album Central Park Concert at the Lawn, and drew more than 120,000 fans, and Bon Jovi's concert during the 2008 MLB All-Star Weekend, which drew about 50,000 people.[56][58]
Other events held in the Great Lawn included the New York opening of the Disney movie
Park officials have been skeptical of the claim that hundreds of thousands of people could fit in the Great Lawn, since Bon Jovi's concert in 2008 which filled the lawn. Only about 10 acres (4.0 ha) of the lawn are estimated to be usable during concerts, and about 6,000 to 8,000 people could fit in an average acre if each person had 5 to 7 square feet (0.46 to 0.65 m2) of personal space.[56]
During the
References
Notes
- Frederick MacMonnies' Columbia in the Ship of State, the familiar fountain centerpiece of the lagoon at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition of Chicago.[23]
- ^ The northwestern playground was replanned as the Arthur Ross Pinetum in 1971; the northeastern playground is reconfigured for handball and basketball.
Citations
- ^ a b c "Central Park Map" (PDF). centralparknyc.org. Central Park Conservancy. 2014. Archived from the original (PDF) on October 5, 2019. Retrieved April 1, 2019.
- ^ ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved April 26, 2019.
- ^ ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved April 26, 2019.
- ^ "Central Park Baseball Fields: NYC Parks". www.nycgovparks.org. Retrieved April 17, 2019.
- ^ "Baseball". The Official Website of Central Park NYC. Central Park Conservancy. February 12, 2015. Archived from the original on April 17, 2019. Retrieved April 17, 2019.
- ^ a b "Field and Court Usage Report for Central Park: NYC Parks". New York City Department of Parks & Recreation. June 26, 1939. Retrieved April 17, 2019.
- ^ a b "Turtle Pond". The Official Website of Central Park NYC. Central Park Conservancy. Archived from the original on April 4, 2019. Retrieved April 4, 2019.
- ^ "Biology in the Big Apple: Surveying the Wildlife of Central Park". Scientific American Blog Network. September 28, 2013. Retrieved April 16, 2019.
- ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved April 16, 2019.
- ^ Central Park Conservancy. "Arthur Ross Pinetum". www.centralparknyc.org. Retrieved September 6, 2019.
- ISBN 978-0-231-12835-3. Retrieved September 6, 2019.
- ISBN 978-1-4027-5833-1. Retrieved September 6, 2019.
- ^ ISBN 978-1-58157-566-8.
- ^ Rosenzweig & Blackmar 1992, p. 66.
- ^ a b Annual Report. 1917. p. 534. Retrieved April 26, 2019.
- ^ Harlem, NY-NJ Quadrangle (Map). 1:62,500. 15 Minute Series (Topographic). United States Geological Survey. 1900. § SW. Archived from the original on January 29, 2019. Retrieved February 22, 2010.
- ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved April 26, 2019.
- ^ Rosenzweig & Blackmar 1992, p. 102.
- ^ Rosenzweig & Blackmar 1992, p. 114.
- ^ a b c d e f g "Central Park Highlights". The Great Lawn : NYC Parks. June 26, 1939. Retrieved April 26, 2019.
- ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved April 22, 2019.
- ^ a b c Rosenzweig & Blackmar 1992, pp. 415–416.
- ^ Rosenzweig & Blackmar 1992, p. 417.
- ^ Rosenzweig & Blackmar 1992, pp. 418–419.
- ^ OCLC 50773395.
- ^ a b Rosenzweig & Blackmar 1992, p. 420.
- ^ a b Rosenzweig & Blackmar 1992, pp. 422–424.
- ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved April 26, 2019.
- ^ Rosenzweig & Blackmar 1992, p. 425.
- ^ a b Rosenzweig & Blackmar 1992, pp. 426–427.
- ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved April 26, 2019.
- ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved April 26, 2019.
- ISBN 0-393-02531-4.
- ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved April 26, 2019.
- ^ Rosenzweig & Blackmar 1992, pp. 429–430.
- ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved April 26, 2019.
- ^ a b Rosenzweig & Blackmar 1992, pp. 434–435.
- ^ Rosenzweig & Blackmar 1992, p. 439.
- ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved April 26, 2019.
- ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved April 26, 2019.
- ^ Rosenzweig & Blackmar 1992, p. 440.
- ^ Rosenzweig & Blackmar 1992, pp. 441–442.
- ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved April 26, 2019.
- ^ Rosenzweig & Blackmar 1992, p. 443.
- ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved April 26, 2019.
- ^ Rosenzweig & Blackmar 1992, pp. 444–445.
- ^ Rosenzweig & Blackmar 1992, pp. 446–447.
- ^ ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved April 26, 2019.
- ^ Rosenzweig & Blackmar 1992, p. 451.
- ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved April 26, 2019.
- ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved April 26, 2019.
- ^ "The Great Lawn: Central Park Conservancy pdf document" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on February 3, 2007. Retrieved February 27, 2007.
- ^ ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved April 26, 2019.
- ^ "Turtle Pond". CentralPark.org. Retrieved October 12, 2014.
- ^ See, for example:
- Strongin, Theodore (August 18, 1965). "CONCERT IN PARK HEARD BY 73,500; Ozawa Leads Philharmonic in the Sheep Meadow". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved April 18, 2019.
- Wilson, John S. (June 18, 1967). "Barbra Streisand's Free Sing-In Jams Sheep Meadow in the Park; Barbra Streisand's, Sing-In Jams Sheep Meadow". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved April 18, 2019.
- Strongin, Theodore (August 18, 1965). "CONCERT IN PARK HEARD BY 73,500; Ozawa Leads Philharmonic in the Sheep Meadow". The New York Times.
- ^ ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved April 26, 2019.
- ^ Rogers, Elizabeth Barlow; et al. (1987). Rebuilding Central Park: A Management and Restoration Plan. p. 114.
- ^ "MLB.com/Entertainment: News". Major League Baseball. Retrieved April 26, 2019.
- ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved April 26, 2019.
- ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved April 26, 2019.
- ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved July 14, 2019.
- ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved April 26, 2019.
- ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved April 26, 2019.
- ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved April 26, 2019.
- ^ Akam, Simon (August 5, 2009). "Report Backs Limits on Great Lawn Crowds". City Room. Retrieved April 26, 2019.
Sources
- ISBN 0-8014-9751-5.