Central Park welcomes its Harlem neighbors with new facilities and programming

Central Park’s Lasker Rink and Pool were fixtures of Harlem from the 1960s onward, providing a place for people from the neighborhood and around the city to swim and skate for a combined half of the year. For the other half of the year, the shuttered facility on Harlem Meer did not, most would agree, enhance the natural beauty of the northern end of the park for those using it.

A major project undertaken by the Central Park Conservancy to replace the facility will soon allow more people to enjoy more activities for more of the year, and the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF) is supporting programming at the new Harlem Meer center for its first two years.

The year-round programming, offered free or at an affordable cost, will take advantage of the Olympic-size swimming pool in the summer, the ice rink that replaces it in the winter, and the open deck that covers it in the shoulder season, as well as other amenities including a splash pad for kids, a boardwalk through the marshy fringes of the Meer, and public restrooms open all year.

This programming will take place in a setting that blends more seamlessly with the naturalistic aesthetic of Central Park. The mass of the building will be tucked into a landscaped hillside, and the project will restore the hydrological logic of that corner of the Park, in which walkers can follow the course of the water flowing from the body of water known as the Pool, through the Loch, and into Harlem Meer.