North End Self-Guided Tour

Charles A. Dana Discovery Center
The Charles A. Dana Discovery Center, which opened in 1993, was the first building in the Park's history to be built as a visitor center. Environmental education and activities are offered, as well as community programs, seasonal exhibits, and holiday celebrations. In the warm months, enjoy the Central Park Conservancy's free catch-and-release fishing program and the free Harlem Meer Performance Festival, two popular outdoor programs.

Harlem Meer
The Park's co-designers, Olmsted and Vaux, called this man-made water body "the Meer" (a Dutch word meaning "lake"), in recognition of the former swampland that was a part of Harlem, the 17th-century community established in this area by New York's first European immigrants.

In the 1660s, the British governors constructed the Kingsbridge Road, an east side highway that linked the growing port at the southern tip of Manhattan Island to Harlem and the British colonies to the north. The road crossed over the swamp by a series of low-lying bridges and passed through the only narrow break in the wall of steep rocky cliffs that line the southern shore of the Meer today. That opening became known as McGown's Pass, a site that played a significant role in the American Revolution. When British ships attacked the indefensible New York colony in September 1776, the British army marched up the Kingsbridge Road to McGown's Pass and captured the fortification that was placed at the pass. For the next seven years, British and Hessian troops occupied this strategically important area until their defeat in the Battle of Yorktown in 1783.

Conservatory Garden
The majestic trees of North America were a source of great national pride in the 19th century and many of the entries for the 1858 design competition suggested that an arboretum be included in the Park. Olmsted and Vaux envisioned their arboretum for the northeast corner of the Park - now the site of the Conservatory Garden and the Harlem Meer. The arboretum was never established, but the Park's first formal garden - the Conservatory Garden - was created in 1898 when a large E-shaped greenhouse was constructed at Fifth Avenue and 105th Street. It featured an indoor winter garden of exotic tropical plants and outdoor decorative Victorian flowerbeds. In 1937, the deteriorated greenhouse was demolished and a new six-acre formal garden was designed for the site.

The garden is divided into three distinct styles: French, Italian, and English. The French-style garden - closest to the Meer - features an ellipse of meandering boxwood and pansies, and showcases spectacular seasonal displays of tulips in spring and chrysanthemums in autumn. In the center is the charming Three Dancing Maidens fountain by German sculptor Walter Schott. The central Italian garden features an elaborate wrought-iron entrance gate and a wisteria pergola, a large lawn surrounded by clipped hedges, a 12-foot-high jet fountain (3.7 meters), and two exquisite allées of pink and white crabapple trees on either side of the lawn. To the south is the English-style garden, featuring sculptor Bessie Potter Vonnoh's lovely Burnett Memorial fountain surrounded by flowering trees, beds of perennials and annuals, and a woodland slope.

Fort Clinton
During the War of 1812 New Yorkers assumed that the British would attack from the southern tip of Manhattan Island, and they built forts in that area accordingly. But in fact the British stormed Long Island Sound at Stonington, Connecticut on August 1814. New Yorkers became fearful that the enemy would sail west through Long Island Sound and attack Manhattan from the north. In August and September several fortifications were built on the high cliffs that flanked the Kingsbridge Road (also known as the Albany/Boston Post Road). From that vantage point, the American troops could see any advancing ships from the Hudson and East Rivers and the Long Island Sound, as well as any armies coming from the northern end of Manhattan. Named after Mayor DeWitt Clinton, Fort Clinton was one of four fortifications on the site that is now Central Park. Although soldiers were stationed at the fortifications, the British never attacked New York City, and in 1815 the Treaty of Ghent ended the war.