37 Fun Central Park Facts You Should Know

New York City's Central Park is one of the city's largest and most beautiful public parks.

You've probably seen the photos of Central Park even if you've never visited New York City. These 'lungs of Manhattan' are a favorite filming site and a welcome reprieve in the never-sleeping city.

Central Park is today one of New York's most famous tourist sites, a lush refuge in one of the world's biggest cities. It's one of the visitor's favorite spots to visit whenever they are in the city, even though it's straightforward to get lost!

Central Park Location

Between Manhattan's Upper East and the Upper, West sides sit Central Park, a New York City urban park. It is the city's fifth-largest park, with 843 ac (341 ha).

As of 2016, it was the most visited urban park in the United States and the most photographed region on the globe.

The park is bordered by Fifth Avenue on the east, Central Park South at 59th Street, Central Park West at Eighth Avenue, and Central Park North at 110th Street.

Harlem is to the north, Midtown Manhattan is to the south, the Upper West Side is to the west, and the Upper East Side is to the east.

The parks 'North End' is above the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Reservoir. 'Mid-Park' is between the Reservoir and the Lake and Conservatory Garden to the south, and the 'South End' is below the Lake and Conservatory Garden.

The park's five visitor attractions include the Charles A. Dana Discovery Center, Belvedere Castle, Chess and Checkers House, the Dairy, and Columbus Circle. The Shops at Columbus Circle, with its world-famous restaurants, cafes, and 50-plus retail businesses, is one of New York City's most well-known landmarks, attracting more than 16 million visitors each year.

Central Park Attractions

Each season and visit to Central Park Conservancy provides something different, whether you choose to seek out specific attractions or meander the paths to escape the city's bustle.

Belvedere Castle, with its panoramic views, The Blockhouse, a surviving fort from the War of 1812, various statues of prominent people such as William Shakespeare, Balto, Alice in Wonderland, and The Obelisk, North America's oldest public monument, are all popular historical sites.

The Great Lawn is a 14 ac (5.6 ha) park featuring multiple artificial lakes and ponds and walking and horse routes. 

Among the attractions are a Wildlife Sanctuary, a large area of natural forests, a 106 ac (43 ha), a large reservoir with an encircling jogging track, the serene, quiet Conservatory Garden, and the neoclassical Bethesda Fountain, also known as the Angel of the Waters.

The series begins in Central Park's Rumsey Playfield, and it is one of the city's most popular summer traditions. It also gets a lot of attractions.

In cooperation with the City Parks Foundation, the Metropolitan Opera established the Summer Recital Series in 2009 to inspire a new generation of opera enthusiasts by bringing free concerts to parks throughout New York City.

Duke Ellington Circle is a traffic circle in Harlem, Manhattan, New York City Department, located near the northeast corner of Central Park, where Fifth Avenue and 110th Street converge. The traffic roundabout is named after Duke Ellington, a jazz musician.

The Delacorte Theater is a 1,800-seat open-air theater in Manhattan's Central Park. Free Shakespeare in the Park performances is presented there by the Public Theater.

Harlem Meer is a lake in Central Park in NYC's northeast corner. The Harlem Meer lake is located near the Manhattan neighborhoods of Harlem and East Harlem, south of 110th Street, west of Fifth Avenue, and north of the Conservatory Garden.

Shakespeare garden in the park is an annual event performed at the Delacorte Theater in NYC that features large-scale presentations of well-known works. The Theater has welcomed over five million visitors from all around the world since its establishment over 45 years ago.

Strawberry Fields is a 2.5 ac (1 ha) groomed portion of Central Park in New York City dedicated to the memory of former Beatles member John Lennon. Landscape architect Bruce Kelly designed it. It's named after the Beatles' 'Strawberry Fields Forever' by John Lennon.

Now there is a specific section where you can do ice skating, not only has ice skating been made available for the visitors but the prices are also reasonable.

The only playground erected there was the North Meadow, which was designed as an open meadow, a pastoral setting intended to represent the countryside and relieve the constrained constraints of urban life.

Flora And Fauna In Central Park 

The beauty of the central park is increased due to the exotic flora and fauna. Here are some facts related to the flora and fauna

In New York's Central Park Zoo, 438 species of spontaneous vascular flora are divided into 262 genera and 89 families.

The Central Park Zoo also has a fauna section that contains the snow leopards that they try to keep in their natural habitats, migratory birds, a turtle pond, and more.

Fun Facts About Central Park

In the 1840s, poet-editor William Cullen Bryant and landscape architect Andrew Jackson Downing suggested a new, massive park as Manhattan's population grew. Their arguments were well-received, and in 1856, the state government approved $5 million to purchase the majority of the park's current territory. A bone-boiling factory, several scattered hovels, wretched farms, free-roaming cattle, and several open drains and sewers were all removed during the cleaning of the site, which began in 1857. 

The architects Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux designed a plan to maintain and enhance the natural elements of the landscape to provide a pastoral park for city people; the proposal was chosen from 33 entries in a competition for a $2,000 prize 1858. Millions of earth and topsoil cartloads were redistributed during the park's following development. Around five million trees and shrubs were planted.

Central Park was completed in 1876 and is considered one of the most incredible feats in artificial landscaping.

A zoo, an ice rink, three small lakes, an open-air theater, and a bandshell, hundreds of modest memorials and plaques are sprinkled across the region. Several sports fields and children's playgrounds are also included available.

The U.S. spent more money on Central Park than Alaska. The park was supposed to cost just over a million dollars to build, but the final bill came to $7.39 million. Alaska was purchased for $7.2 million when the park was built.

There's also a police station, many early-nineteenth-century blockhouses, and 'Cleopatra's Needle' (an ancient Egyptian obelisk). There are various walkways and bicycle trails throughout the park and multiple roads that go through it.

Glacial formations may be seen all across the park. Glaciers produced almost all of the visible bedrock in Central Park. Umpire Rock is located on the West Side, just south of the Heckscher Ballfields, near 63rd Street. The rock, also known as 'schist,' is thought to have been created by solid subsurface heat and pressure 450 million years ago.

In the park, there's a 19th-century Swedish Cottage. The Swedish Cottage was imported in 1876 and brought to the park in 1877. The wooden tower now houses one of the last remaining public marionette companies in the United States.

Do keep an eye out for upcoming performances throughout the year! On the city park's website, you may find a calendar. The Swedish Cottage is located at 79th Street on the West Side.

The first thing you'll notice about Central Park Conservancy is how large it is. The plot is 843 ac (341 ha) in size. It's located in the center of Manhattan, near the fashionable Upper West Side. It's even more vast than Monaco, a tiny European country with a size of only 500 ac (202 ha)!

 Central Park is not New York City's largest park despite its enormous size! Most people believe that Central Park is the city's most significant green space, which is one of the most generally misinterpreted Central Park facts. Other NYC parks are much bigger than it.

Central Park's natural characteristics are all artificial. One of the fascinating facts about Central Park is that, despite its natural appearance, practically all of the park's rolling slopes and valleys were built from scratch. Central Park is a wholly groomed environment, with no natural elements such as hills, trees, lakes, or other natural characteristics.

The park's landscaping required a lot of explosives. Central Park was created on a site with much-projecting bedrock, which caused many problems for the park's early designers to landscape the area.

Almost 13,499,984 cu ft (382,277 cu m) of rock had to be blasted up, dug up, and hauled away. This massive undertaking required more gunpowder than was utilized in the Battle of Gettysburg!

It has a Victorian Gothic Castle on its grounds. There are several odd monuments in Central Park, but Belvedere Castle is possibly the most well-known.

The castle rests on Vista Rock, Central Park's second-highest natural point, and is made of Manhattan schist, which has a characteristic gray color.

The primary lake in the park holds 1 billion gals (4.5 billion l) of conservatory water. The Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Reservoir is Central Park's biggest lake, spanning over 100 ac (40 ha) and holding a staggering 1 billion gal (4.5 billion l) of water.

There is 58 mi (93 km) of pedestrian routes spread throughout Central Park. The seemingly endless paths that snake and weave their way through the lovely parkland total almost 58 mi (93 km) of the trail, allowing you to run two marathons back-to-back without ever leaving the park!

A house near Central Park costs around $875,000. So, if you plan to buy a house somewhere near Central Park, your salary should be around $178,500.