Central Park Landmarks
The Great Lawn Pedicab Tour in Central Park
The Great Lawn is the wide, open center of Central Park, a 55-acre landscape between 79th and 85th Streets with a 12-acre oval of grass at its heart. It sits on the site of an old city reservoir and is one of the park's main places for picnics, softball and large concerts.
Photo: Kcpwiki · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Source
Quick facts
- Where
- Mid-park, between 79th and 85th Streets, at the park's geographic center
- Size
- 55 acres in total, with a 12-acre main lawn
- Before the lawn
- the Croton receiving reservoir, opened in 1842
- Plan completed
- the mid-1930s
- Restored
- unveiled in October 1997 after an $18.2 million restoration
- Nearby
- Turtle Pond, Belvedere Castle and the Reservoir
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History
The Great Lawn was not in Olmsted and Vaux's original plan. The site held the Croton receiving reservoir, a stone tank that opened in 1842, and its rectangular shape forced the park's designers to work around it. The reservoir was declared obsolete in 1917, and ideas for the site included a World War I memorial, a sports arena and an opera house.
The lawn plan was finished in the mid-1930s with an oval lawn for sports, playgrounds on the north edge and a small pond to the south, which is now Turtle Pond. The Living New Deal project notes that Depression-era work programs built it. During that period, after the reservoir was drained, unemployed and homeless people settled on the site in a shantytown known as a "Hooverville."
By the 1970s heavy use and poor upkeep had worn the grass away, and the lawn earned the nickname "the Great Dust Bowl." Large concerts from the 1960s to the 1980s were part of the cause. The restoration that began in 1995 and was unveiled in October 1997 rebuilt the lawn with more than 500,000 square feet of Kentucky bluegrass over engineered soil with underground drainage and added 275 pop-up sprinklers. Turtle Pond got a naturalistic shoreline, an island and a camouflaged nature blind.
What to look for
- The open oval of lawn
- Turtle Pond on the south edge
- Belvedere Castle on the rock above the pond
- Softball fields around the lawn
Visiting The Great Lawn
The Great Lawn is closed in winter to let the grass recover, so check before you visit. It hosts the New York Philharmonic's Concerts in the Parks and the Global Citizen Festival, and event schedules change. Belvedere Castle and The Obelisk are both a short distance away. The Conservancy lists no restrooms on the lawn itself.
Frequently asked questions
Where is the Great Lawn?
In the middle of Central Park, from about 79th to 85th Street, between the East and West Drives.
What was the Great Lawn before?
It was the Croton receiving reservoir, built in 1842 and drained after being declared obsolete in 1917.
Why was it called the "Great Dust Bowl"?
Decades of heavy use and big concerts wore the grass away before the 1997 restoration.
When was the Great Lawn restored?
The restoration was unveiled in 1997.
Sources
Nearby landmarks
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