Central Park, the Pond, Manhattan

View showing the the pond in Central Park, with buildings in the background on Fifth Avenue and 59th Street, about 1936. Source: Photographic views of New York City from the collections of the New York Public Library.

The picturesque Pond is a 3.8-acre lake placed on the site of steep rock outcrops and a natural brook that came from the west side of Manhattan Island and emptied into the East River. In 1858, Frederick Law Olmsted (1822-1903) and Calvert Vaux (1824-1895) designed Central Park with the low-lying swamplands transformed into pastoral water bodies. Continue below...

The Sherry-Netherland Hotel is on the left, at 781 Fifth Avenue, on the northeast corner of 59th Street. It opened in 1927 on the site formerly occupied by the old Hotel Netherland. The Savoy-Plaza Hotel on the southeast corner of East 59th Street, also opened in 1927 and was demolished in 1965. The 35-story art deco building at 745 Fifth Avenue, completed in 1930, is on the southeast corner of 58th Street. The Plaza Hotel is on the right. It opened in 1907, constructed on the site of the old Plaza Hotel, built from 1883 to 1890.