The Pond and Hallett Nature Sanctuary are two connected features at the southeastern corner of

Central Park Central Park is an urban park between the Upper West Side and Upper East Side neighborhoods of Manhattan in New York City, and the first landscaped park in the United States. It is the List of parks in New York City, sixth-largest park in the ...

Manhattan Manhattan ( ) is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the Boroughs of New York City, five boroughs of New York City. Coextensive with New York County, Manhattan is the County statistics of the United States#Smallest, larg ...

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

. It is located near

Grand Army Plaza Grand Army Plaza, originally known as Prospect Park Plaza, is a public plaza that comprises the northern corner and the main entrance of Prospect Park in the New York City borough of Brooklyn. It consists of concentric oval rings arranged as s ...

, across

Central Park South 59th Street is a crosstown street in the New York City borough of Manhattan, running from York Avenue and Sutton Place on the East Side of Manhattan to the West Side Highway on the West Side. The three-block portion between Columbus Circle ...

from the

Plaza Hotel The Plaza Hotel (also known as The Plaza) is a luxury hotel and condominium apartment building in Midtown Manhattan in New York City. It is located on the western side of Grand Army Plaza, after which it is named, just west of Fifth Avenue, ...

, and slightly west of

Fifth Avenue Fifth Avenue is a major thoroughfare in the borough (New York City), borough of Manhattan in New York City. The avenue runs south from 143rd Street (Manhattan), West 143rd Street in Harlem to Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village. The se ...

. The Pond is one of seven bodies of water in Central Park.

Hallett Sanctuary

The Hallett Nature Sanctuary is the smallest of Central Park's wooded areas at . Originally known as the Promontory, it is the only permanently fenced-off section of Central Park aside from

Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Reservoir The Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Reservoir, also known as Central Park Reservoir, is a decommissioned reservoir in Central Park in the New York City borough of Manhattan, stretching from 86th to 96th Streets. It covers and holds over of water. ...

, occupies of the wooded promontory to the west of the Pond, jutting into the water body. The area was closed in 1934 when

NYC Parks The New York City Department of Parks and Recreation, also called the Parks Department or NYC Parks, is the department of the government of New York City responsible for maintaining the city's parks system, preserving and maintaining the ecolog ...

commissioner

Robert Moses Robert Moses (December 18, 1888 – July 29, 1981) was an American urban planner and public official who worked in the New York metropolitan area during the early to mid-20th century. Moses is regarded as one of the most powerful and influentia ...

set the site apart as a

bird sanctuary An animal sanctuary is a facility where animals are brought to live and to be protected for the rest of their lives. In addition, sanctuaries are an experimental staging ground for transformative human–animal relations. There are five types of ...

. In the 1980s, after decades of neglect, invasive alien plants like

ailanthus ''Ailanthus'' (; derived from ''ailanto,'' an Ambonese Malay, Ambonese word probably meaning "tree of the gods" or "tree of heaven") is a genus of trees belonging to the family Simaroubaceae, in the order Sapindales (formerly Rutales or Geranial ...

and Far Eastern

wisteria ''Wisteria'' is a genus of flowering plants in the legume family, Fabaceae (Leguminosae). The genus includes four species of woody twining vines that are native to China, Japan, Korea, Vietnam, southern Canada, the Eastern United States, and nor ...

s were extirpated, and the equally invasive though native

black cherry ''Prunus serotina'', commonly called black cherry,World Economic Plants: A Standard Reference, Second Edition'. CRC Press; 19 April 2016. . p. 833–. wild black cherry, rum cherry, or mountain black cherry, is a deciduous tree or shrub in the r ...

was thinned, the woodland was enriched with native shrubs. The reserve was renamed in 1986, in honor of

George Hervey Hallett Jr George Hervey Hallett Jr. (1895–1985) was a civic activist and avid birder. As head of Citizens Union, a municipal watchdog group, he led the revision of the New York City Charter that was adopted by voters in 1975. Hallett was born in 1895 to ...

. (1895–1985), an ardent birdwatcher and naturalist and executive secretary of the

Citizens Union Citizens Union is a New York City-based good government group founded in 1897 to combat the influences of the Tammany Hall political machine. J. Pierpont Morgan, Benjamin Altman, Elihu Root, and Carl Schurz numbered among its 165 founders. In 1 ...

. The Hallett Sanctuary was reopened to the public in 2016, when the Central Park Conservancy started allowing visitors to enter the sanctuary during middays. The Central Park Conservancy routinely offers half-hour tours; they avoid nesting season and the height of migratory season, because Central Park is a stopover on the

Atlantic Flyway The Atlantic Flyway is a major north-south flyway for migratory birds in North America. The route generally starts in Greenland, then follows the Atlantic coast of Canada, then south down the Atlantic Coast of the United States to the tropical ...

. The perimeter affords one of the prime

bird watching Birdwatching, or birding, is the observing of birds, either as a recreational activity or as a form of citizen science. A birdwatcher may observe by using their naked eye, by using a visual enhancement device such as binoculars or a telescop ...

areas of the Park. Formerly, deadfalls remained where they lay, to provide for insects that feed birds. However, the experiment ended after an

Asian longhorn beetle The Asian long-horned beetle (''Anoplophora glabripennis''), also known as the starry sky, sky beetle, or ALB, is native to the Korean Peninsula, northern and southern China, and disputably in northern Japan. This species has now been accidentall ...

was discovered in 2002. Another unexpected visitor was

Hal the Central Park Coyote Urban coyotes are coyotes that reside in North American metropolitan areas (major cities and their suburbs). Coyotes thrive in suburban settings and urban regions because of the availability of food and the lack of predators. One report describe ...

, who received his nickname from the Hallett Sanctuary and passed through briefly in March 2006.

The Pond

As originally laid out by

Frederick Law Olmsted Frederick Law Olmsted (April 26, 1822 – August 28, 1903) was an American landscape architect, journalist, Social criticism, social critic, and public administrator. He is considered to be the father of landscape architecture in the U ...

and

Calvert Vaux Calvert Vaux Fellow of the American Institute of Architects, FAIA (; December 20, 1824 – November 19, 1895) was an English-American architect and landscape architect, landscape designer. He and his protégé Frederick Law Olmsted designed park ...

, the Pond was considerably larger. A large piece of its upper reaches, which once spanned a narrow neck of water, was paved over to form

Wollman Rink Wollman Rink is a public ice rink in the southern part of Central Park, Manhattan, New York City. It is named after the Wollman family who donated the funds for its original construction. The rink is open for ice skating from late October to ...

, which opened in 1950. Nearby, on stone plinths, bronze busts commemorate the poet

Thomas Moore Thomas Moore (28 May 1779 – 25 February 1852), was an Irish writer, poet, and lyricist who was widely regarded as Ireland's "National poet, national bard" during the late Georgian era. The acclaim rested primarily on the popularity of his ''I ...

and the composer

Victor Herbert Victor August Herbert (February 1, 1859 – May 26, 1924) was an American composer, Cello, cellist and conducting, conductor of English and Irish ancestry and German training. Although Herbert enjoyed important careers as a cello soloist and co ...

(by

Edmond Thomas Quinn Edmond Thomas Quinn (December 20, 1868 – September 9, 1929) was an American sculptor active from the Gilded Age to the Jazz Age, with work in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, National Portrait Gallery, Whitney Museum of Ameri ...

). The

Central Park Conservancy The Central Park Conservancy is an American private, nonprofit park conservancy that manages New York City's Central Park under a contract with the government of New York City and NYC Parks. The conservancy employs most maintenance and opera ...

started a reconstruction of the Pond in 2000, and completed it the next year. The reconstruction included new shoreline and perimeter plantings, an island habitat for birds and turtles, and beyond Gapstow Bridge, a series of small pools and cascades. A male

mandarin duck The mandarin duck (''Aix galericulata'') is a perching duck species native to the East Palearctic. It is Sexual dimorphism, sexually dimorphic – the males are elaborately coloured, while the females have more subdued colours. It is a medium- ...

resident of the Pond, nicknamed Mandarin Patinkin, received international media attention in late 2018 and early 2019; the duck's colorful appearance and the species' appearance outside its native range in

East Asia East Asia is a geocultural region of Asia. It includes China, Japan, Mongolia, North Korea, South Korea, and Taiwan, plus two special administrative regions of China, Hong Kong and Macau. The economies of Economy of China, China, Economy of Ja ...

contributed to its popularity. The Pond is spanned by Gapstow Bridge, a

schist Schist ( ) is a medium-grained metamorphic rock generally derived from fine-grained sedimentary rock, like shale. It shows pronounced ''schistosity'' (named for the rock). This means that the rock is composed of mineral grains easily seen with a l ...

structure built in 1896 by Howard & Caudwell. It replaced an 1871 bridge by

Jacob Wrey Mould Jacob Wrey Mould (7 August 1825 – 14 June 1886) was a British architect, illustrator, linguist and musician, noted for his contributions to the design and construction of New York City's Central Park. He was "instrumental" in bringing the Brit ...

. The first bridge was a wooden bridge supported by segmental arches on either side of the deck, the tops of which rose above the deck, similar to the design of a

through arch bridge A through arch bridge, also known as a through-type arch bridge, is a bridge that is made from materials such as steel or reinforced concrete, in which the base of an arch structure is below the deck but the top rises above it. It can either be lo ...

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Pond and Hallett Nature Sanctuary Central Park Lakes of Manhattan Lakes of New York (state)