The Great Lawn
Central Park
In the 1830s New York City was under tremendous pressure
to develop a pure water system for its citizens. It was decided
in 1838 to dam up the Croton River, 38 miles to the north of the
city in Westchester as a source of clean water. Only the force of
gravity was needed to run the water in open channels, iron pipes,
and aqueducts to the great distributing reservoir at 42nd Street
and Fifth Avenue. The 55-acre site here, a part of Yorkville, was
chosen for the holding area-the rectangular-shaped receiving reservoir-and
began use in 1842. Unlike the existing reservoir, there was no promenade
or walkway surrounding the water's edge. A reservoir keeper lived
in a dwelling on the site of the two northern ballfields. A portion
of the reservoir wall can still be seen at the base of this sign.
When Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux designed
Central Park in 1858, they created thick plantings and earthen mounds
to hide the high stone walls that they felt were unwelcome to their
romantic landscape design. Nonetheless, they placed a miniature
castle, called Belvedere (Italian for "beautiful view") atop Vista
Rock in order to view the two reservoirs. When New York City was incorporated in 1898 into today's
five-borough metropolis, the existing water system was considered
insufficient, and plans for a new water system rendered the old
reservoir obsolete. Many proposals were generated, among them a
water lagoon and a memorial to soldiers in World War I. The reservoir
was filled in the 1930s, partially from excavation material for
Rockefeller Center. Finally it was decided to use the area as a
lawn and play area for children. The Beaux-Arts oval was designed
by the New York Chapter of the American Society of Landscape Architects,
who gave the Great Lawn its name. It was built with slight modification
under the administration of Parks Commissioner Robert Moses and
opened to the public in 1937. Baseball diamonds were added in the
1950s. The small lake, originally designed as part of the
Great Lawn and known as Belvedere Lake was renamed Turtle Pond by
Parks Commissioner Stern in 1987 in honor of its reptilian residents.
A nature blind has been added to the recent 1997 restoration of
the pond so that park visitors might quietly observe the three species
of turtles, dragonflies, and damselflies, and many varieties of
waterfowl without disturbance. The equestrian statue by Stanislaw Kazimierz Ostrowski
on the eastern shore of Turtle Pond commemorates King Wladyslaw
Jagiello, the first Christian Grand Duke of Lithuania who led Polish
and Lithuanian forces against the Teutonic Knights of the Cross
at the 1410 Battle of Grunewald. It was originally sited in front
of the Polish pavilion at the 1939 World's Fair in Flushing Meadows
Corona Park. The area in front of the statue has long been a gathering
place for folk dancers. In 1957 theater producer Joseph Papp offered free
public performances of the works of William Shakespeare on the shores
of the pond. Five years later the construction of the Delacorte
Theatre was completed with funds provided by philanthropist George
Delacorte. It is now the summer home of the Public Theatre/New York
Shakepeare Festival. In the 1970s the Great Lawn became home to
the free summer performances of the New York Philharmonic and the
Metropolitan Opera.
Sunday, Oct 10, 1999