Central Park Zoo is located in Central Park in New York City and run by the Wildlife Conservation Society.The zoo was not part of the original "Greensward" design for Central Park created by Olmsted and Vaux, but a Central Park menagerie near New York's arsenal, on the edge of Central Park located at Fifth Avenue facing East 64th Street, spontaneously evolved in 1859 from gifts of exotic pets and other animals informally given to the Park; the original animals on display included a bear and some swans. In 1864, a formal zoo received charter confirmation from New York's assembly, making it it the United States's second publicly owned zoo, after the Philadelphia Zoo, founded in 1859. The new zoo was given permanent quarters behind the Arsenal building in 1870.
By 1980, the zoo, like Central Park itself, was sadly dilapidated; in that year, responsibility for its management was assumed by the New York Zoological Society which is now the Wildlife Conservation Society. The zoo was closed in the winter of 1983, and demolition began. The redesign of 1983–88 was executed by the architectural firm of Kevin Roche, Dinkeloo. The old-fashioned menagerie cages were abandoned for more natural exhibits. The costs of the renovations, which had been originally budgeted at $22 million, reached a total of $35 million. The zoo reopened to the public on August 8, 1988.
Some of the original buildings, with their low-relief limestone panels of animals, were reused in the redesigning, though the cramped outdoor cages were swept away. Most of the large animals were rehoused in larger, more natural spaces at the Bronx Zoo. The central feature of the original zoo, ranged round the sea lion pool, was retained and the pool redesigned. Since its modernization the Central Park Zoo, traditionally available to parkgoers free of charge, charges admission to its enclosed precincts.
Central Park Zoo
address
830 Fifth Ave. (at W. 64th St.)
Manhattan, NY 10021
phone: 212-439-6500
fax: 212-988-0286
