Frank da Cruz
fdc@columbia.edu
March 4, 2018
Last update: Sun Jan 27 07:29:43 2019 NYC time

Overview    See gallery    Central Park New Deal Map

These are the Central Park New Deal projects I've been able to identify so far. Links in the first column are to pages of mine that have details about the New Deal pedigree of the site. An Announcement link in the last column goes to a Parks Department press release for the site. Bear in mind that beyond what is shown here, the entire park was renovated, every square inch, including landscape, infrastructure, walls, paths, roads, flora, and fauna. New Deal labor also removed some significant Park features, including the 1842 Croton Receiving Reservoir (filled in to become the Great Lawn) and the 1864 Central Park Casino (to make way for the Rumsey Playfield).

Type: N = New construction; R = Renovation;   Class = New Deal Pedigree  (see below)

Site (current name)	Location	Type	Class	Year	Notes
Adventure Playground	West Side at 68th Street	N	D	1936	(marginal) Announce­ment
Ancient Playground	East Side at 84th Street	N	A	1936	(marginal)
Alice in Wonderland Statue	James Michael Levin Playground	N	C	1935	Moved from Heckscher Playground
Arsenal	East Side at 64th Street	R	D/C	1934	NYC Parks Depart­ment head­quarters
Arsenal Murals	Inside the Arsenal	N	A	1936
Bernard Family Playground	Harlem Meer, 5th Ave and 108th St	N	D	1936	(marginal)
Bicycle path	South end of park	N	D	1941	Announce­ment
Billy Johnson Playground	East Side at 67th Street	N	D		(marginal)
Bridle Path	North Meadow	R	D	1934
Bridle Path	Around the Reservoir	R	D	1934
Bridle Path	Lower park	R	D	1934
Columbus Monument Restoration	Columbus Circle	R	A	193x	(somewhere between 1934 and 1937)
Conservatory Garden	East Side at 106th Street	N	B	1937
Diana Ross Playground	West Side at 81st Street	N	D	1936	(marginal) Announce­ment
East 72nd Street Playground	East side at 72nd Street	N	D		(marginal)
East 96th Street Playground	East Side at 96th Street	N	D		(marginal)
East 110th Street Playground	Harlem Meer	N	D	1936	(marginal)
Great Lawn	Behind Metropolitan Museum	N	A	1936	Includes 8 new ballfields
Great Lawn Game Courts	NE corner of Great Lawn	N	D	1936	Announce­ment
Harlem Meer	Northeast corner of park	R	A	1943
Harlem Meer Boathouse	Northeast corner of park	N	E	1947	Completion delayed by WWII
Heckscher Playground	Southwest corner	R	D/E	1936	Includes 6 ballfields, some new
James Michael Levin Playground	East Side at 77th Street	N	D	1936	(marginal) Announce­ment
Maine Monument Restoration	Columbus Circle	R	A	193x	(somewhere between 1934 and 1937)
Mariners' Playground	West Side at 84th Street	N	D	1936	(marginal) Announce­ment
Mother Goose Statue	East Side at 72nd Street	N	A	1938
North Meadow	North of 97th Street Transverse	R	C/D	1935	Includes 12 new ballfields
North Meadow Recreation Center	97th Street Transverse	R	D	1935	Announce­ment
Pat Hoffman Friedman Playground	East Side at 79th Street	N	D		(marginal)
Pinetum Playground	West Side at 84th Street	N	D	1936	Just above the Great Lawn
Robert Bendheim Playground	East Side at 100th Street	N	D	1936	(marginal) Announce­ment
Rudin Family Playground	West Side at 96th Street	N	D	1936	(marginal) Announce­ment
Rumsey Playfield	East Side at 72nd Street	N	D	1937	(marginal) Announce­ment
Safari Playground	West Side at 91st Street	R	E		(marginal)
Seventh Regiment Monument	West Side at 67th Street	R	C	1937	(restoration) Announce­ment
Still Hunt Statue	East Drive at about 77th Street	R	D	1937	(restoration)
Tarr Family Playground	West Side at 100th Street	N	D	1936	(marginal) Announce­ment
Tavern on the Green	West Side at 66th Street	R	A	1934
Tots Playground	West Side at 68th Street	N	D	1936	(marginal) Announce­ment
(VANISHED PLAYGROUND)	West Side at 76th Street	N	A	1941	(marginal) Announce­ment
West 86th Street Playground	West Drive at 86th Street	N	E		(marginal)
West 110th Street Playground	Northwest corner of park	N	D		(marginal)
Wild West Playground	West Side at 93rd Street	N	D	1936	(marginal) Announce­ment
Zoo (Central Park Zoo)	E 64th Street behind Arsenal	N	A	1934

Class (= New Deal pedigree):

A =	Solid New Deal credit by Parks Dept in press release or website, and/or other NYC government website.
B =	Work done during New Deal by Parks Department; New Deal credited by credible source, e.g. the NY Times or a reputable book.
C =	No explicit credit to New Deal but a New Deal architect, engineer, or sculptor was credited by name.
D =	No explicit credit to New Deal but records show that nearly all work done in Central Park 1934-1943 was with New Deal funding and labor [explain].
E =	Probable New Deal project but exact date is uncertain. Or project was begun during New Deal and completed later (like the Harlem Meer Boathouse*). Or the project was supposedly funded privately but did not specify where the labor came from, so it was probably "relief labor". Or the information is simply missing, as for many of the playgrounds, all of which but one we can deduce were built during the New Deal because we have counts, if not explicit lists.

*	The original Harlem Meer Boathouse was torn down and replaced by a new one about 1994.

• Before New Deal work began on Central Park in 1934, it had only one playground: Heckscher Playground near Columbus Circle. "In just three more years, it had twenty-two, including seventeen (twenty by 1941) 'marginal playgrounds' dotted along the park's outer rim..." (see notes on this page). This means that at least 20 playgrounds were constructed by relief labor before the end of the New Deal.
• Read about marginal (perimeter) playgrounds here: "Planning began in 1934 and construction began in September 1935. Less than a year later, by June 1936, eighteen playgrounds were completed, located in landscapes just inside the Park's perimeter wall."
• Marginal playgrounds for which no year is given were not announced by the Parks department in their press releases, but are known to be New Deal, because we know how many marginal playgrounds were built between 1934 and 1941.
• In this page, the Parks Department lists 21 playgrounds in currently Central Park. Really there are only 20 because the same 100th Street Playground is listed twice. This matches what I have in the table. But of the 20, nine have no information at all in the press releases or on the Parks website.
• Most New Deal playgrounds have been rebuilt since WWII, and at least six of them have been turned into "adventure playgrounds" (see this page, section "Playground Innovation" towards the bottom). So there is actually very little of the New Deal to be seen in today's Central Park playgrounds.
• Most of these playgrounds have also been renamed, some of them multiple times, so they can be traced only by location.
• Adventure Playground and Tots Playground are both at 68th Street and Central Park West; they appear to be one New Deal 1936 playground split in two.
• Ancient Playground was built on the site of a 1936 (and therefore New Deal) playground. In 1953 another playground, Osborn Playground, was built between the 1936 playground and the north side of the Metropolitan Museum, but was demolished in 1972 to make way for a new wing to house the Museum's ancient Egyptian collection, and the 1936 playground was reconstructed as Ancient Playground, and totally reconstructed again in 2009. Info from this page at the Central Park Conservancy.
• Mariners' Playground is also known as Mariners' Gate Playground and the Toll Family Playground.
• Pinetum Playground, about 90 meters north of the Great Lawn, was built in 1936 as Northwest Playground. It's one of Central Park's few non-marginal playgounds. It's not mentioned in the press releases. See more information at this Central Park Conservancy page, which notes that it "included standardized play equipment and a large wading pool" and that in 1971 and 1997 it was scaled down to a small collection of "swings, exercise bars, and picnic tables".