Yesterday was a beautiful, last-days-of-summer day in New York City and we walked up to Central Park. Belvedere Castle was looking especially lovely so I thought I’d share it. It’s one of the settings in my novel Lilac Girls (a scene takes place there during winter) but it was especially nice to enjoy it at 75 degrees and sunny in the park.
True to its name, which translates to “beautiful view” in Italian, Belvedere Castle provides wonderful views of the park. According to the Central Park website, Calvert Vaux, co-designer of Central Park, created the miniature castle in 1869 as one of its many whimsical structures intended as a lookout to the reservoir to the north (now the Great Lawn) and the Ramble to the south.
I’ve come across some great illustrations of Belvedere Castle in my research. Seems the castle and the adjacent skating pond were quite the places to be in turn of the century NYC.
From the Collections of the Museum of the City of New York.
Love this photo of Belvedere Castle with the skating flag flying. The white flag with the red ball was the signal the ice was ready for skating.
