The lakes, hills and woods of Central Park look as if they had always been there, yet almost everything was drawn on an 1858 plan and built with gunpowder, carts and thousands of labourers. To make room, the city evicted hundreds of people, among them the residents of Seneca Village, a community of Black property owners. Twelve stops between the pond at the southern corner, the meadow where sheep once grazed, the avenue of elms, the carved terrace, the angel of the waters, the garden in memory of John Lennon, the iron bridge over the lake, the handmade wilderness, the castle that measures the weather, the lawn that was once a reservoir and a shantytown, Jackie Kennedy's great sheet of water and the village the park wiped off the map. Approximate audio duration: 20 minutes.
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Central Park: el bosque que parece natural y fue construido piedra por piedra
Los lagos, las colinas y el bosque de Central Park parecen haber estado siempre ahí, pero casi todo fue dibujado en un plano de 1858 y construido a fuerza de pólvora, carretas y miles de obreros. Para hacerlo, la ciudad expulsó a cientos de personas, entre ellas los vecinos de Seneca Village, una comunidad de propietarios negros. Doce paradas entre el estanque de la esquina sur, el prado donde pastaban ovejas, el paseo de los olmos, la terraza tallada, el ángel de las aguas, el jardín en memoria de John Lennon, el puente de hierro sobre el lago, el bosque salvaje hecho a mano, el castillo que mide el clima, el césped que fue reservorio y villa miseria, el gran espejo de agua de Jackie Kennedy y el pueblo que el parque borró del mapa. Duración aproximada de audio: 20 minutos.
Tour stops
12 stops · ~20 min of audio · 4.13 km on foot (~1 h walking) · about 1 h 30 min in total
You are standing at The Pond, in the south-east corner of Central Park. Behind the trees rise the towers of 59th Street. A few steps away, the traffic of Fifth Avenue. And here, suddenly, water, ducks and rocks.
Look at the stone bridge across the pond. It is Gapstow Bridge, built in 1896. It looks old, rustic, almost medieval. Like nearly everything you will see today, it was designed to look as if it had always been there.
In the mid-nineteenth century Manhattan had over half a million people and almost no public green space. On Sundays New Yorkers strolled through cemeteries, because they…
2
The Meadow of the Sheep
In front of you is a huge, open, gently rolling meadow. This is Sheep Meadow. On sunny days it fills with people lying on the grass. From its edge the skyscrapers look like a distant wall.
This meadow did not exist. The ground was rocky and uneven. To get this smooth surface, workers blasted rock with gunpowder, filled hollows and brought in fertile soil by the cartload.
Olmsted had a clear idea. He wanted a pastoral landscape, like the English countryside, where the eye could rest. A place where a labourer and a banker could share the same view, for free.
To complete the picture, they brou…
3
The Avenue of Elms
You are on The Mall, a broad, straight promenade under a vault of trees. Look up: the branches meet over your head like the arches of a cathedral.
These are American elms. They form one of the largest remaining stands of elms in North America. In the twentieth century Dutch elm disease killed millions of elms across the continent. Here they survived thanks to constant care, tree by tree.
Notice something odd. In the whole park, this is almost the only straight line. Olmsted and Vaux disliked straight lines in a landscape, but they wanted one formal place for promenading, where people would m…
4
The Carved Terrace
You have reached the end of the Mall. Ahead, stone stairs lead down to the water. This is Bethesda Terrace, the heart of the park, the one place where Olmsted and Vaux accepted monumental architecture.
Look at the balustrades and the piers. They are covered in carvings: birds, fruit, flowers, leaves. They were designed by Jacob Wrey Mould, an English architect who worked with Vaux. Each side has its own theme, including scenes of the seasons.
Walk down the stairs to the arcade that runs beneath the road. If you can, go inside.
Look at the ceiling. It is covered with thousands of English til…
5
The Angel Who Celebrates Water
You are in front of Bethesda Fountain. Above it stands a bronze angel with outstretched wings. In one hand she holds a lily. With the other she seems to bless the falling water.
She is the Angel of the Waters, unveiled in 1873. The sculptor was Emma Stebbins, the first woman to receive a commission for a major public artwork in New York.
The name comes from the Gospel of John. It tells of a pool in Jerusalem, Bethesda, where an angel stirred the water and gave it the power to heal.
But the angel is not only about a biblical miracle. She celebrates something very concrete: clean drinking wat…
6
Strawberry Fields: Imagine
Look at the ground. There is a black and white mosaic circle with a single word at its centre: Imagine. It almost always has flowers on it, and sometimes someone is playing guitar nearby.
You are in Strawberry Fields, the garden in memory of John Lennon. Now look across Central Park West. That European-looking building with pointed roofs is the Dakota.
Lennon lived there with Yoko Ono. On the night of 8 December 1980, as he returned home, he was shot dead at the building's entrance. He was forty.
Yoko Ono championed this garden and paid for it. It was dedicated on 9 October 1985, the day Le…
7
The Bridge over a Lake That Was a Swamp
You are on Bow Bridge. It is made of cast iron, with lacy railings and a gentle curve, like the bow of a violin. It was completed in 1862, designed by Vaux and Mould.
Below you is the Lake. It looks like a mountain lake, with ragged shores, rocks and hidden coves. It was dug by hand. Before, this was marshy ground.
Workers moved rock and earth with picks, shovels, gunpowder and horse-drawn carts. At the busiest times, thousands of men were working in the park at once, many of them Irish immigrants.
The Lake was one of the first features to open. In December 1858, while the park was still a …
8
The Handmade Wilderness
You have entered The Ramble. Narrow winding paths, moss-covered rocks, trees that hide the sky. Within minutes you can no longer see the buildings. It is easy to get lost, and that is deliberate.
This is about 36 acres of woodland. It looks like the last scrap of Manhattan's original nature. It is not. Olmsted called it his wild garden, and designed it as carefully as a drawing room.
The paths curve so that you never see very far. Trees and shrubs were chosen and planted one by one. The rocks that break through are partly the island's original bedrock, Manhattan schist, but everything around…
9
The Castle That Measures the Weather
You are in front of Belvedere Castle, perched on a rock. It has a tower, battlements, arched windows. It looks like a miniature medieval fortress in the middle of Manhattan.
It never defended anything. It is a folly: a decorative building made to crown the view. Vaux and Mould designed it, and it was built in the late 1860s.
Belvedere means beautiful view in Italian. Climb to the terrace if it is open. From here, in the nineteenth century, you could see both water reservoirs to the north and much of the park.
Look at the rock beneath the castle. It is Vista Rock, Manhattan schist. On some r…
10
The Lawn That Was a Reservoir and a Shantytown
You are at the edge of the Great Lawn, an oval of grass of more than fifty acres. Baseball games, sunbathers, picnics. It looks as if it has always been a meadow. But this was water.
Here stood the Receiving Reservoir, a rectangular basin completed in 1842 to receive water from the Croton Aqueduct, the same water the Bethesda angel celebrates. It was older than the park: Olmsted and Vaux had to design around it.
When the city built a new reservoir further north, this one became obsolete. In the early 1930s it was drained.
Then came the Great Depression. On the dry floor of the reservoir, ho…
11
Jackie's Sheet of Water
In front of you is a vast expanse of water. On the far side, as if floating, the skyline of the Upper West Side. All around, people running on a dirt track.
This is the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Reservoir. It was built between 1858 and 1862, at the same time as the park. It covers about 106 acres, more than an eighth of the park, and is around forty feet deep.
It could hold about a billion gallons of water. For more than a century it was a key part of the system that supplied Manhattan.
In 1993 it was taken out of service for drinking water. Today it is an ornamental lake and a refuge for …
12
Seneca Village, the Town the Park Erased
Look around you: trees, a gentle slope, rocks, a path. Nothing suggests there were ever houses here. But between 82nd and 89th Streets, near Central Park West, there was an entire village. It was called Seneca Village.
It began in 1825. That year Andrew Williams, a young African American shoeshiner, bought three lots of land here. Others followed. New York had not yet fully abolished slavery: it would do so in 1827.
By the 1850s Seneca Village had around two hundred and twenty-five residents. Most were African American, along with Irish and German immigrants. It had three churches, cemeterie…
How long does the "Central Park: the Wilderness That Was Built Stone by Stone" audio tour take?
It has about 20 minutes of audio across 12 stops and a 4.13 km walking route (~1 h on foot). Plan roughly 1 h 30 min in total, or split it up: you can pause and resume anytime.
Where does the tour start?
At stop 1, "The Pond Where the City Stops" (coordinates 40.7665, -73.9743). The app guides you from stop to stop with a map.
Is it free?
Trevurs is a free app for iOS and Android. There is also an optional Premium version, from USD 1.99, with unlimited offline downloads, access to every tour and no ads. It also helps keep an independent app alive.
Why use an audio tour instead of a guided group tour?
No group to keep up with and no guide to wait for. Start at any time of day, on your own schedule. Go at your own pace: pause, rewind or skip any stop. No need to commit 2 or 3 hours to a single tour: do one stop or the whole route. Works offline once downloaded.
What languages is this audio guide available in?
This tour is available in Spanish, English, Portuguese, French, Italian. Switch languages anytime from inside the app.
Do I need wifi to listen to this tour?
No. Download the tour over wifi before you go, then listen without any data connection.
How do I access this tour?
Download Trevurs on iPhone (App Store) or Android (Google Play), then open New York and pick "Central Park: the Wilderness That Was Built Stone by Stone". No account required to start.
