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.
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| Dancers in Central Park, 1961 |
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| Unicyclist in Central Park, 1961 |
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| Warming up before a soccer match, Central Park, 1961 |
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| Scene in Central Park, 1961 |
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| A painter finds a secluded spot, Central Park, 1961 |
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| Central Park's Bethesda Fountain, 1961 |
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| Rowers on 'the lake' in Central Park, 1961 |
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| Fishing in Central Park, 1961 |
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| Sunbathers cool their feet, Central Park, 1961 |
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| Scene near the Boat House, Central Park, 1961 |
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| Model sailboats in Conservatory Pond, Central Park, 1961 |
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| Nelson's flagship Victory gets a tender launching by its builder, Arthur Langton |
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| Dogs in a fountain, Central Park, 1961 |
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| Chess players, Central Park, 1961 |
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| Water fountain, Central Park, 1961 |
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| In a wonderland for climbers a bronze Alice is cluttered with children who have scrambled over Mad Hatter and other Lewis Carroll creatures |
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| A trio of newly graduated students strolls soberly past a trio of figures dancing ring-around-a-rosy at a fountain |
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| The park's carriage trade, out for a morning ride, moves in conversational formation along a broad pavement |
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| Scene in Central Park, 1961 |
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| Elephants in Central Park, 1961 |
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| Seals in Central Park, 1961 |
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| Kodiak bears, Central Park, 1961 |
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| Couple on a bench, Central Park, 1961 |
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| A young woman is helped down from a horse-drawn carriage, Central Park, 1961 |
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| Scene in Central Park, 1961 |
(Photos by Leonard McCombe—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images)