Bethesda Terrace

When in New York... how can you not go here when so many movies have been filmed in this very spot? Architecture is stunning too!

A great place to sit by the lake and enjoy various wonderful street performances.

The Bethesda Terrace overlooks the Lake in Central Park and might be familiar to you as the scene of countless of movies. On a good day, it’s perfect for people watching while slurping on ice team and who knows? You might chance upon a princess from a fairy tale land (you’ll know, as she’ll be singing) or Asgardians returning home.

Want an up close an personal taste of your own Step Up experience? Just hang around Bethesda Terrace in Central Park and performers are bound to set up a show. They are pretty good, breaking down beats and performing amazing dance routines.

Climb up the staircase at Bethesda Terrace towards the upper levels and gain a vantage point where you can view the entire terrace, the fountain and the Lake. Beneath the arch is a pathway that connects to The Mall, a majestic promenade lined with beautiful greens.

Bethesda Terrace is on two levels, united by two grand staircases and a lesser one that passes under Terrace Drive to provide passage southward to the Elkan Naumburg bandshell and The Mall, of which this is the architectural culmination, the theatrical set-piece at the center of the park. The upper terrace flanks the 72nd Street Cross Drive and the lower terrace provides a podium for viewing the Lake. The mustard-olive colored carved stone is New Brunswick sandstone, with a harder stone for cappings, with granite steps and landings, and herringbone paving of Roman brick laid on edge.

Bethesda Terrace became a site for an outdoor luncheon restaurant at the end of the 1960s, then became a congregating spot for the Hair generation before devolving into a drug-trafficking venue in the 1970s. The fountain, which had been dry for decades, was restored in its initial campaign, 1980–81, by the Central Park Conservancy as the centerpiece of its plan to renovate Central Park.[1] The Terrace, designed by Vaux with sculptural decoration by Mould, was restored in the following season, its stonework disassembled, cleaned, deteriorated surfaces removed, restored and patched and reset.

Resodding, and fifty new trees, 3,500 shrubs and 3,000 ground cover plants specified by Philip Winslow followed in 1986,[2] most of which, having matured into dense blocks, were removed in 2008, to make way for plants native to the United States. The Minton encaustic tiles of the ceiling of the arcade between the flanking stairs, designed by Mould,[3] were removed in 1987, cleaned, restored, completed with additional new tiles and reinstalled in 2007.