Cherry Hill Park

City Approves New Design for Central Park's Cherry Hill

The project, first proposed this past Spring, hopes to correct the awkward traffic between pedestrians, horse-drawn carriages and pedi-cabs around the concourse. The concourse is popular with tourists for its classic vista of the city skyline towering over the Central Park lake.

“Right now, it’s like a human game of frogger,” said Dina Libner, a spokesperson for the Central Park Conservancy . “It’s dangerous and inconvenient for pedestrians.”

The current design has a largely unused central paved circle around the fountain, which is surrounded by an elevated brick circle used by horses and pedi-cabs. The new design will pave over the brick circle, make a single area for horses, and create a new pedestrian path with landscaping around the perimeter.

Cherry Hill has gone through several changes over the last century. Although intended as a scenic turnaround for carriages, by the mid-20th century it had become essentially a parking lot. In the 1980s, park officials sought to invigorate the area by creating the design that is currently in place.

According to Libner, the park's original architects would have approved of the new design.

“The way the concourse had developed in terms of design had really become a departure of [Frederick Law] Olmsted and Vaux’s original intentions, which was to be a way for carriages and pedestrians to view and interact with the lake,” said Libner.

In the mid-20th century, Cherry Hill became a glorified parking lot. (Photo courtesy of the Central Park Conservancy)