| Belvedere Castle | |
|---|---|
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 Interactive map of Belvedere Castle | |
| General information | |
| Architectural style | Hybrid ofGothic andRomanesque |
| Coordinates | 40°46′46″N73°58′09″W / 40.779447°N 73.96906°W /40.779447; -73.96906 |
| Construction started | 1867 |
| Completed | 1869 |
| Design and construction | |
| Architects | Calvert Vaux andJacob Wrey Mould |
Belvedere Castle is afolly inCentral Park inManhattan,New York City. It contains exhibit rooms, anobservation deck, and since 1919 has housed Central Park’s official weather station.
Belvedere Castle was designed byCalvert Vaux andJacob Wrey Mould in 1867.[1] An architectural hybrid ofRomanesque andGothic styles, the design called for aManhattanschist andgranite structure with a corner tower and conical cap, a lookout over parapet walls beneath it.[2] Its name comes frombelvedere, which means "beautiful view"in Italian.[3]: 162
Belvedere Castle was built as a shell with doors and windows open to the weather.[3]: 162 Originally, the main tower had a more medieval design, with a weather antenna on top, but during the castle's 1983 renovation, the tower was restored in a German style with aflag, aweather vane, and ananemometer on top. The two fancifulhalf-timbered woodenpavilions deteriorated without painting and upkeep and were removed before 1900, but restored in the 1980s.[4]
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Starting in 1869, Belvedere Castle housed the New York Meteorological Observatory, which had been taken over by theUnited States Weather Bureau. The current weather station in Central Park, anAutomated Surface Observing System (ASOS), is located immediately south of the castle, though wind equipment is still located on the main tower.[3]: 162 [5]
The castle caps Vista Rock, a 130-foot-tall (40 m) outcropping of schist and the park's second-highest natural elevation.[6][7] (Summit Rock, at 83rd Street overlookingCentral Park West, is higher at 137.5 feet (41.9 m).[8]) Constructed ofManhattan schist quarried in the park and dressed with gray granite, it tops the natural-looking woodlands ofThe Ramble, as seen from the formalBethesda Terrace. The natural rock was tunneled through for the innovative sunken transverse roadway that still carries commercial and other traffic unobtrusively through the park.
The castle serves now as a visitor center and gift shop. Free family and community programs hosted at Belvedere Castle include birding and other Central Park Conservancy discovery programs for families as well as a variety of history and natural history programs led by NYC Urban Park Rangers, including stargazing/astronomy and wildlife-education events.
The eastern elevation formerly faced a rectangular receiving reservoir that was part of theCroton Aqueduct system.[9] The reservoir was filled in with city building rubble, beginning with spoil from construction of theNew York City Subway'sIND Eighth Avenue Line (now carrying theA, B, C, and D trains) in the 1930s. Today, the eastern elevation overlooks theGreat Lawn and Turtle Pond, which occupies the former site of the receiving reservoir.
The castle was designed by the architectsCalvert Vaux andJacob Wrey Mould as an additional feature of theGreensward Plan, created by Vaux andFrederick Law Olmsted. Olmsted and Vaux were re-hired to their positions in mid-1865 after quitting abruptly several years before.[10][11]: 58–59 In 1867, Vaux decided to develop this area by building Belvedere Castle on the top of the rock, overlooking the Croton Reservoir.[12][13] The site already held a fire tower under the control of the Croton Aqueduct board, and so the fire tower was demolished.[14]
The original plans for Belvedere Castle called for two turreted stone towers: a larger structure on the eastern elevation and a smaller structure on the west side.[11]: 60 UnderTammany Hall's leadership, it was revised in November 1870 to reduce costs and was completed as an open painted-wood pavilion of Mould's design.[1][15] The eastern structure was completed by 1871, while the western structure was never built.[11]: 60 As the plantings matured, the castle has been obscured from its original intended viewpoint. Its turret is the highest point in the park.[16]
After the New York Meteorological Observatory automated its equipment and moved its offices toRockefeller Center in the 1960s, Belvedere Castle was closed to the public and became an object of much vandalism, neglect and deterioration.[17][18] TheCentral Park Conservancy launched a restoration effort and reopened the structure on May 1, 1983. The original turret was replaced, the pavilions were rebuilt, and the castle was converted into a visitor center.[5] In 1995, the Conservancy's Historic Preservation Crew replaced the painted woodenloggia of the castle, working from the 1860s designs, on the granite piers and walls that had survived. The same year, a $340,000 grant was distributed toward restoring the castle as the Henry Luce Nature Center. That restoration was completed in 1996.[19]
In 2018, the Central Park Conservancy conducted a second renovation of Belvedere Castle. Plans included replacing existing doors and windows with double paned glass.[5] In addition the Conservancy proposed to construct a new access path toADA standards from the East Drive.[20] The access path − actually an elevated ramp with parapets − has been criticized as creating an unnecessary barrier in the otherwise naturalistic park.[21] Following the $12 million renovation, the castle reopened on June 28, 2019, complete with a geothermal heating and cooling system that was installed by the Central Park Conservancy.[22][23][24]
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