Arches of Central Park |
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Greyshot Arch is located a short distance from Columbus Circle's "Merchants Gate," just east of 61st and 62nd Streets. Greyshot Arch was built: 1860-1862 by Vaux. It is made of Westchester County variegated gneiss, a whitish-gray stone with veins of dark orange. It features distinctive styled fleurs-de-lis on the fencing. Its’ vaulted archway is lined with Philadelphia red brick and it has a 30 foot, 6inch wide and 10 foot, 1 inch high opening. Greyshot’s passage way is 80 feed long. This is one of Central Park’s most heavily-trafficked areas.
The Municipal Archives holds 19 drawings of the arch.
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Pine Bank Arch is located in line with 62nd Street, near Heckscher Playground. It was built in 1861 by JB and WW Cornell Ironworks. Pine Bank was made of cast iron, steel and wood and it carries a 16-foot-wide pedestrian walkway. It is 11 feet above the bridle path. It is one of Central Park’s few remaining cast iron bridges. The years took a toll on the arch and in 1984 the bridge was restored by the Parks Department. Parts had to be fabricated, old rust and paint were scraped off and the once concrete deck was replaced with a wooden walkway. Today it is a picturesque ornamental bridge.
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Dalehead Arch is located just inside the Park near Central Park West at 64th Street. It is close to the Heckscher Ballfields. Dalehead was built: 1860-1862 by Vaux and made of sandstone and brownstone. It’s span is 80 feet long and it is 11 feet high by 24 deep. Dalehead features quatrefoil cutouts on the 77-foot balustrades and looks very much the way it did when first opened over 140 years ago.
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This inconspicuous archway is close to 72nd Street and Central Park West. Just inside the park entrance and straight across the street from the famous Dakota apartments. The underside of the arch has a enveloping terrain that keeps it well hidden from the pedestrian and auto traffic which travels through the park. Designed by Vaux, it was built in 1862. It was constructed of Manhattan schist and measures 30 feet wide and 11feet 10 inches tall.
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Among natural hills and trees is a narrow arched structure. Placed in a cleft between two high rock outcrops, One of the narrowest of Central Park’s arches known as Ramble Arch measures only 5 feet across, rising to a height of 13 feet 6 inches. It has a passage 9 feet long and 32-foot sidewalls along the top. Built in 1863 by Vaux and made of rock-fact ashlar. Except for the base course, the arch and blocks are boulders found in the park, flattened at their sides and "Laid to appear like dry wall, but interior in cement." The rockface ashlar, gives an especially picturesque quality to the arch. Large boulders were moved here to heighten the dramatic setting.
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Winterdale Arch , over bridle path at about 82nd Street, was named because it was part of what was know as the Winter Drive. The landscape was originally designed to give a wintery appearance with evergreens planted on each side of the arch. Its arched opening is enough to host both the bridle path and a pedestrian path separated by an ordinary pipe rail fence which runs under the path. The wide arch has a span of 45 feet 6 inches, the largest span of all the stone and brick bridges, and a height of only 12 feet 3 inches. The arch is faced with smooth Maine granite. Buttresses on each side of the arch curve down to low supporting walls with posts treated as stylized urns. The interior walls of the arch is lined with red Philadelphia pressed brick interspersed with Milwaukee white brick in a cross pattern.
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park. It was built by Vaux and Mould in 1862. The footpath underneath the archway leads around the Heckscher Playground and north toward the Carousel. Dipway Arch is one of the underpasses pedestrians use to avoid crossing the Park Drive. Dipway represents another Calvert Vaux archway designed with a variety of stone textures. Dipway’s granite is from Rackcliff Island, near Seal Harbor, Maine. It has a two-tone bluish color that is offset by it’s red brick underpass. It’s original cast iron railings are still intact but the benches it use to feature are long gone. The arch is small, measuring 15 feet 6 inches wide and 11 feet 7 inches high.
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Driprock Arch is located under the Center Drive around 63rd Street. The archway, built in 1860 by Vaux and Mould, originally provided passage for the bridle path which was later removed with the expansion of the Heckscher Playground in the 1930s. The arch is made of red brick and New England sandstone. Driprock is 24 feet wide with a height of 11 feet. The underpass runs for 65 feet while the handrail extends 79 feet 8 inches.
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Playmates Arch is one of the most ornate masonry structures in Central Park. It is made of the similar Philadelphia pressed brick, Milwaukee yellow brick and a granite trim leading some visitors to nickname it the “tricolor archway.” It is located just south of the 65th Street transverse. Playmates Arch was named as such because it continues a pedestrian walkway between the Dairy, which once served fresh milk and other refreshments, and the Carousel and is the most immediately known feature of the Children’s District of the Park. The Arch was designed by Calvert Vaux and detailed by Jacob Wrey Mould and completed in 1863. The span is 17 feet 8 inches wide, and 9 feet 11 inches high. The underpass is 66 feet long. The west side of the original cast-iron railing was destroyed in an auto accident and was replaced with a duplicate cast-iron railing in 1989 as part of the overall restoration of the Arch by the Parks Department.
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Inscope Arch was built in response to a traffic problem. The hindrance of pedestrians that annoyed horseback riders and carriage drivers was enough to make the Department of Public Parks to seek a resolution in the 1870’s. Olmsted and Vaux, Landscape Architects recommended three new bridges: original Gapstow Bridge, Outset Arch, over the bridle path, and Inscope Arch, the only original one of the three that still remains. Inscope is well worth a visit. Ornamental pink granite surrounds the gray granite that boarders the opening of the archway. It is actually one of the “newer” arches in Central Park and was built a good ten years after most of the others in the park. It is 13 feet 7 inches across a the base and 12 feet high in the middle.
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