Photo: Wikimedia Commons.

What we know today as the Tavern on the Green in Central Park at West 66th Street was originally a “sheep fold”; that is, a barn for the sheep that used to graze on the Sheep Meadow. Meanwhile the Central Park Casino, an exclusive club for the rich and powerful[2,pp.397-401] situated across the park, was deemed an improper use of public land and torn down and the sheep fold converted into a ”popular priced restaurant”[3] open to the public[4].

1. Rosenzweig, Roy, and Elizabeth Blackmar, The Park and the People: A History of Central Park, Cornell University Press (1992), pp.454-455,449-451.
2. Caro, Robert A., The Power Broker - Robert Moses and the Fall of New York, Vintage Books (1974).
3. New York City Parks Department press release of October 29, 1934.
4. The Report of the Department of Parks to August 1934: Memorandum on 1935 Budget Request of the Department of Parks, NYC Department of Parks archive. “Since January 19th of this of year the Department of Parks has spent $26,000,000.00 on new construction from Work Relief funds ... New construction projects include ... Complete new zoos will be finished in Central Park... The sheepfold in Central Park has been converted into a modern tavern ... The lower reservoir area in Central Park will be rebuilt and opened to the public...”
5. New York City Parks Department press release of April 3, 1937: Reopening of Tavern on the Green (and also the newly renovated historic Claremont Inn, which burned down in 1949).
6. New Deal Assistance in NYC Parks Department Projects, 1934-43.
7. The 1930s: Robert Moses and a New Deal at centralparkhistory.com.
8. Tavern On The Green website.