Bethesda Terrace

Bethesda Terrace serves as the architectural heart of Central Park. Designers Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux envisioned this space as an open air hall of reception where visitors could gather after walking the long promenade of the Mall. Even as they built this grand stone structure, they maintained a philosophy that architecture should always remain subordinate to nature, insisting that the landscape came first, second, and third. Construction began in eighteen fifty-nine, and remarkably, work continued throughout the American Civil War, reflecting its status as a high priority for the developing city.