Skating on the Lake - 1885

Skating in the Park
December 1859: After a decade of debate, designs and construction, the first part of the Park is opened - from the Lake south to 59th Street. 100,000 people make the trip North to ice-skate on the Lake by moonlight.

Behind the skaters is the famous Dakota Building, once home to John Lennon and the filming of Rosemary's Baby. But when it was completed in 1882, it was so far from the city, people said that it might as well be in the Dakota Territory - which is where it got its name.

The photograph below was taken from looking South from the Dakota in 1890. As you can see, its neighbors were mostly shacks and adobe huts. No building of comparable height can be seen.

Upper West Side
On 18 January 1876, the 9th Avenue El (click here for more on New York's elevated trains) opened its 61st Street station, and the Upper West Side finally had so means of modern public transportation. But not until 1891 was it extended up to the Dakota at 72nd Street and beyond to 116th. Notice the use of carriages and horse-drawn omnibuses along Central Park West, however. Traffic was fairly busy.

Looking South from the Dakota Building - 1890

5th Avenue
Consider that at this time, 5th Avenue right across the Park was already earning the name of Millionaire's Row. Carnegie, Frick, Mellon, Vanderbilt, Kahn, Rockefeller, Phipps, Astor - all of them maintained enormous mansions like the ones seen below (the Astor house is in the foreground) while across the park, they lived in ramshackle housing.

Looking North up 5th Avenue from 65 Street - 1903

Of course, the great irony is that because these single-family mansions lined 5th Avenue up until the 1930's and even later in some cases, Central Park West was developed for apartment buildings much earlier. The pre-war apartment buildings such as the San Remo, the Beresford, the Langham and others, were built in a style much grander than those which would replace these mansions on 5th. Ultimately, the East Side would end up looking much poorer than the West Side because it was developed that much later.