About the Davis Center

The northernmost portion of Central Park was not initially included in the site authorized by the New York State legislature for the Park, which originally extended from 59th to 106th Street between Fifth and Eighth Avenues.

Recognizing that the rugged terrain of the land north of 106th Street made it ideal for creating picturesque scenery (as well as impractical for developing as building sites), the Commissioners appointed to oversee the construction of the Park secured legislation in 1859 authorizing the extension of the Park site to 110th Street. The additional property between 106th and 110th Streets was acquired by the City in 1863.

The Park’s north end was substantially constructed between 1863 and 1867. Water featured prominently in the naturalistic design, flowing through the Ravine in the North Woods toward the northeastern corner of the site, where a tidal marsh traversed by the Harlem Creek was transformed into the Harlem Meer.

The rocky high ground to the west and south descended abruptly, offering expansive views toward northern Manhattan and the Harlem River.

The design of the north end featured the picturesque waterway of the Loch, which flowed through the Ravine in the North Woods. Pedestrians following a path that ran alongside the water would pass under the Park Drive through Huddlestone Arch, emerging to discover the scenic spot where the Loch emptied into the Meer.

Well into the early years of the twentieth century, the Meer maintained its historic picturesque character, providing residents of the crowded, frenetic city an opportunity to experience the serenity of recreation in a rural setting and a sense of connection to nature.

In response to increasing pressures of use, facilities began to be added. The first boathouse on the Meer was built in the late 1920s, and stone edging reinforced the Meer shoreline in an effort to address the challenge of maintaining a vegetated shoreline in the face of heavy use that caused compaction and erosion of the landscape.

The addition of facilities and hardening of the Meer shoreline continued through the middle decades of the 20th century under Parks Commissioner Robert Moses. Two playgrounds were constructed in the surrounding landscape in the mid-1930s. A massive redevelopment project in the 1940s replaced the original boathouse with a much larger facility and enclosed the waterbody in a concrete retaining wall and paved paths.

By 1950s, the historic character of the Meer was dramatically altered. While it continued to provide recreational amenities for the surrounding community, the landscape had been largely paved over and built up, and steel picket fencing lined much of the waterbody. As a result, the original, fundamental purpose and value of the Park as the antithesis of and antidote to the city was diminished.

The Meer’s transformation from an idyllic landscape to a collection of facilities in a sea of concrete culminated in the construction of the Lasker Memorial Rink and Pool. Constructed in the 1960s on the spot where the Loch emptied into the Meer, the hulking structure severed the connection between the Meer and the North Woods, and diverted the watercourse between the Loch and the Meer into a culvert.

Inherent flaws in the siting and design of Lasker were apparent even before its completion. Heavy rains resulted in flooding that destroyed the original mechanical systems, delaying the opening of the facility by nearly ten months. Chronic flooding would continue to plague the facility for the next fifty years.

The cumulative impact of changes and additions to the Meer over the preceding four decades is evident in this aerial view of the northeast corner of the Park in 1975. With the city on the verge of bankruptcy, drastic budget cuts would decimate the resources available for park maintenance, ushering in an era of rapid decline.

By the 1980s, the Meer was in a state of severe decline: concrete shoreline and asphalt paths were crumbling; the abandoned boathouse and adjacent food concession, ravaged by arson and vandalism, were overgrown with weeds; and the waterbody was silted in and filled with debris.

The playgrounds that had been added in the 1930s were run-down and inhospitable, cut off from their surroundings by seven-foot steel picket fences.

The Central Park Conservancy, founded in 1980 to reverse the decline of the Park in partnership with the City, publishes Rebuilding Central Park: A Management and Restoration Plan, laying out a comprehensive approach that would guide the transformation of the Park over the next several decades.

The Conservancy initiates planning and design work for the restoration of the Harlem Meer and surrounding landscape.

The Parks Department enters into an agreement with Trump Organization to operate Wollman and Lasker Rinks (part of a citywide move to outsource the operation and maintenance of ice-skating facilities to private concessionaires). Over time, the pressure to generate revenue would shift the focus at Lasker away from community skating and hockey clinics to accommodate rental of ice time and fee-based participation on the concessionaire’s teams.

In the wake of a brutal attack on a female jogger, a Citizens’ Task Force on the Use and Security of Central Park is convened to address security challenges and perceptions, especially within the rugged topography and densely wooded landscape of the north end of the park. With participation from community groups as well as representatives of the Conservancy, Parks Department, and police, the recommendations of the Task Force emphasized projects and programs aimed at increasing park use and the maintenance presence in this part of the Park.

Based on the Task Force recommendations, the Conservancy launches a campaign to renovate the North Meadow Center as a hub for expanded recreation programs, and establishes an Upper Park Community Advisory Committee to increase local participation and input on restoration projects and public programs. Other outgrowths of the Task Force recommendations include significant expansion of the summer youth intern program, and implementation of an access route through the North Woods for maintenance and security vehicles.

The project to restore the Harlem Meer is completed. The waterbody is dredged, naturalistic shoreline re-created, an island added (in an effort to screen the Lasker facility from view), and surrounding landscape restored. The restoration reflects the historic design and purpose of the Park as a naturalistic retreat, and reinforces this focus with public programs for the community out of the new Dana Discovery Center.

Initially renovated in the 1990s with the Meer, the two playgrounds in the surrounding landscape would subsequently be rebuilt as part of a campaign to comprehensively address all of the Park’s playgrounds and their relationship to the Park. This view of East 110th Street Playground, reconstructed in 2013, demonstrates how recreation facilities seamlessly integrated and immersed in the landscape can support the Park’s essential purpose.

Restoration of the high ground along the south shore of the Harlem Meer known as the Fort Landscape is completed. Two rustic overlooks on the site of military fortifications that pre-dated the Park offer sweeping views across the Meer

The Conservancy restores the Ravine in the North Woods. The Loch—the waterway that flows through a series of pools and cascades in the Ravine—had suffered from long periods of neglect and decline through much of the 20th century. Decades of accumulated sediments were excavated to restore it.

Lasker Pool and Rink remains a visual and physical barrier, walling off the newly restored Ravine and Loch from the Meer.

The City and the Conservancy announce a transformational project to re-envision the site of Lasker Pool and Rink at the Harlem Meer, replacing the existing, ill-conceived facility with a new one integrated into the topography of a restored landscape. The culmination of decades of work to restore the northern end of the Park, the project represents the capstone of the Park’s renewal.

The value of the Park is underscored during the COVID pandemic, as lockdowns and social distancing make it one of the few places for people to congregate. The closure of playgrounds and other park facilities, along with the cancellation of all events and team sports, foster renewed appreciation among New Yorkers of the Park’s essential, enduring purpose as a reprieve and the restorative, uplifting power of the landscape.

The Gate of the Exonerated becomes the first and only park entrance to be named since 1862, when the original entrances were named for groups of citizens representing “the whole people” for whom the Park was built. Inspired by the experience of the five youth wrongfully convicted of the 1989 attack on a jogger in the Park, it honors all people who have been wrongfully convicted of crimes, and is the outcome of dialogue that began during the Conservancy’s engagement with the community around the re-envisioning of the pool and rink.

With completion and opening of the Davis Center at the Harlem Meer, the decades-long effort to restore and reconnect the landscape at the north end of the Park is finally and fully realized; the flow of water and movement of people between the North Woods and the Meer is re-established; and a long walled-off piece of the Park is returned to the community in the form of a welcoming, accessible facility seamlessly integrated into a restored park landscape.