Vista Rock, the little castle and its terraces over Turtle Pond and the Great Lawn, the towers of the west side beyond, the works on the ramparts.
Calvert Vaux and Jacob Wrey Mould designed Belvedere Castle as a folly on Vista Rock, the second highest point in Central Park, completed in 1872. It was built to be looked at from the Mall and had no use but the view. The National Weather Service has taken the city's official weather readings here since 1919. The Conservancy restored it in 1983 and again in 2019.
Source · Central Park Conservancy ↗
The granite and schist folly with its tower, the two terraces at different heights, the pond below with turtles and the Delacorte stage, the Great Lawn and the twin towered skyline of Central Park West. Mood: october afternoon. Everything is procedural geometry with painted surfaces; nothing is a scan or a photograph. The room is an interpretation, and it hangs the New Yorkers the census recorded at this place first.