New York’s Central Park has been around, in various incarnations, for roughly 150 years. In that time it has been hailed as a masterpiece of landscape design; has served as a punchline in jokes about muggings and violent crime; provided the setting for key scenes in countless books, plays and movies; and remains, for New Yorkers and for millions of visitors to Gotham every single year, one of the world’s great urban wonders — 800 acres of tree-lined paths, public plazas, open fields, gardens, ponds, lakes, bridges, performance spaces, a castle on a hill, arguably the world’s greatest museum and a small, quite charming zoo.
Here, a series of photos life in Central Park from 1961, taken by photographer Leonard McCombe.
 |
| Dancers in Central Park, 1961 |
 |
| Unicyclist in Central Park, 1961 |
 |
| Warming up before a soccer match, Central Park, 1961 |
 |
| Scene in Central Park, 1961 |
 |
| A painter finds a secluded spot, Central Park, 1961 |
 |
| Central Park's Bethesda Fountain, 1961 |
 |
| Rowers on 'the lake' in Central Park, 1961 |
 |
| Fishing in Central Park, 1961 |
 |
| Sunbathers cool their feet, Central Park, 1961 |
 |
| Scene near the Boat House, Central Park, 1961 |
 |
| Model sailboats in Conservatory Pond, Central Park, 1961 |
 |
| Nelson's flagship Victory gets a tender launching by its builder, Arthur Langton |
 |
| Dogs in a fountain, Central Park, 1961 |
 |
| Chess players, Central Park, 1961 |
 |
| Water fountain, Central Park, 1961 |
 |
| In a wonderland for climbers a bronze Alice is cluttered with children who have scrambled over Mad Hatter and other Lewis Carroll creatures |
 |
| A trio of newly graduated students strolls soberly past a trio of figures dancing ring-around-a-rosy at a fountain |
 |
| The park's carriage trade, out for a morning ride, moves in conversational formation along a broad pavement |
 |
| Scene in Central Park, 1961 |
 |
| Elephants in Central Park, 1961 |
 |
| Seals in Central Park, 1961 |
 |
| Kodiak bears, Central Park, 1961 |
 |
| Couple on a bench, Central Park, 1961 |
 |
| A young woman is helped down from a horse-drawn carriage, Central Park, 1961 |
|
| Scene in Central Park, 1961 |