Belvedere Castle:Follies, Forecasts, Feathers &

Flowers

By Todd Larson

My childhood romps through Central Park often took me up to

the summit of Vista Rock…

…where craggy, decrepit old Belvedere Castle ominously

hulked over me…

…convincing me that Count Dracula dwelt therein (and

partially right I was — it was used as the castle of The Count on

Sesame Street)…

…but its weather-beaten door was always barred to me, dashing all my hopes and dreams of meeting

the venerable vampire in the flesh.

Now revamped as the Henry Luce Nature

Observatory, the castle has opened its door,

inviting the public in to see not bats in the

belfry…

…but birds in the Belvedere.

The Observatory’s collections of natural history artifacts such as bird feathers and skeletons, along with microscopes and telescopes, introduce

young ones to the scientific method by which naturalists observe their world, draw conclusions about its inner workings, and share their insights with the

community.

Always nature-centered in its

own right, Belvedere

Castle was built in 1871 of gray granite and the park’s native

schist — a layered

crystalline rock unique to

Manhattan — as a natural

outgrowth of Vista Rock, the park’s second-highest natural

elevation.

Sculptor Jacob Wrey Mould and architect Calvert Vaux conceived the towered, arched edifice as a

Romanesque-Gothic folly providing a romantic overlook onto Central Park’s picturesque scenery,

including Turtle Pond, the Ramble, and the reservoir (now the Great Lawn) —

hence its name, Belvedere, an Italian word meaning “beautiful view.”

Originally built as a shell with open windows, terrace pavilions, and portals topped by Mould’s bronze sculptures of bat-winged cockatrices, the

castle was enclosed when it became the headquarters of New York’s Weather Bureau

Station in 1919.

To accommodate meteorological equipment, the tower’s conical slate roof with copper cresting

and flagstaff was replaced by

“more martial ghost-walk

battlements,” as M.M. Graff put it in her 1982 book

The Men Who Made Central Park. Weather

data and readings have been taken at

Belvedere for local weather

reports ever since.

So whenever TV or radio

meteorologists announce, “The temperature in

Central Park is…”, that figure comes from the castle in the air.

But when the Weather Bureau Station relocated to Rockefeller

Center in the late 1960s, Belvedere Castle was closed to

the public and besieged by decay and vandalism, sporting

neon-streaked graffiti on its crumbling walls and sprouting weeds in its eroding mortar.

The mighty fortress was on the brink of collapse when the Central Park Conservancy

rescued this damsel in distress in 1983. Its restoration included

reconstruction of the original tower roof and colorful wood terrace pavilions from their

extant foundations.

Drac may have flown the coop, but its eeriness lingers: every

Halloween, the cockatrices signify it as the “Spooks at Belvedere”

haunted castle.

Friendlier winged creatures also frequent the castle. Belvedere’s terraces are pristine places to watch more than 200 species of

birds. Let’s meet a few of our feathered friends…

Belvedere’s Birds

Blackbird

Heron

Gray Catbird

Hooded Merganser

Hooded Warbler

Kestrel Osprey

Grebe

Ruby-Throated Hummingbird

White-Throated Sparrow

This springtime gathering of turtles after a long winter’s hibernation is one among many natural sights in and around Turtle Pond, which include reptiles,

amphibians, crickets, dragonflies, and shoreline plants such as…

Belvedere’s Beasts

Belvedere’s Buds & Bulbs

Blue-Flag Iris Bulrush

Lizard’s Tail Turtlehead

Thank you for

watching!For more

information on Belvedere Castle, please

visit:www.centralpark2000.com/database/belvedere_castle.htmlwww.centralpark.com/pages/attractions/belvedere-castle.htmlwww.centralparknyc.org/site/PageNavigator/virtualpark_thegreatlawn_belvederecastle