The Lower Central Park Walking Tour

Guided by Alfred Pommer, a college graduate, an informative native New Yorker and a Licensed New York City Guide, with 19 years experience researching, creating and giving walking tours in Manhattan’s many diverse neighborhoods. This walking tour focuses on history along with interesting pictures and stories that help join us with Central Park’s past

A two hour walk from Grand Army Plaza and the Sherman Memorial past:

• The Pond, large outcrops of Manhattan bedrock (schist) and ‘Thomas Moore’
• The Zoo (unintentional), The Arsenal Bldg. and the ‘Delacorte Clock’
• ‘Balto’, New York's only statue commemorating a dog
• ‘Shakespeare’ paid for by Edwin Booth, John Wilkes Booth and Junius Booth Jr. and commemorates the 300th anniversary of Shakespeare's birth
• ‘The Indian Hunter’ the first statue in Central Park by an American sculptor
• Literary Walk with "Robert Burns" "Walter Scott" "Fritz-Green Halleck" and the Central Park Bandstand
• Bethesda Terrace with "The Angel of Waters", the 1st major public sculpture by a woman
• The lake the largest body of water in Central Park and the Boathouse.
• ‘Still Hunt’ depicts a mountain lion coiled and looking intently at his next victim
• ‘King Jagiello’ and Turtle Pond
• ‘Cleopatra’s Needle’(from 16 BC) and the Great Lawn (the reservoir and Hooversville)
• Delacorte Theater and Belvedere Castle atop Vista Rock
• A stroll through the Rambles and over Bow Bridge to Cherry Hill Fountain
• And then we pass the “Falconeer” and "Daniel Webster” before entering Strawberry Fields and pass the Dakota.

• the Sheep Meadow and I’ll show you the building that once was Central Park ’s sheepfold and home for a Sheppard, his family and a flock of 500 Landsdown sheep
• the "Seventh Regiment Memorial" honors the 7th Regiment in the Civil War
• ‘Guiseppe Mazzine’ commemorates the Italian writer and fierce advocate for the unification of Italy
• The Carousel, there has been a carousel in operation at this location since 1871
• the Chess and Checkers House sitting on top of a outcrop of Manhattan bedrock with striation made by a receding glacier over 20,000 years ago
• Wollman Rink originally built 1950 reducing The Pond from 5 acres to 3 acres, it was rebuilt 1996
• The Dairy ( Gift Shop and Information Center). Each stop is fully discussed.

The Walking Tour Includes Interesting Facts About :

• Seneca Village and see where it was
• The true story about the man who claimed to be the real designer of Central Park
• The creation of Central Park and what was on the site before the park
• Why and how the original zoo in Central Park was created - as a after thought
• Why New York’s most corrupt mayor saved Central Park
• Who was Thomas Delacorte