The Arsenal is a symmetrical brick building with modestly Gothic Revival details, located in

Central Park Central Park is an urban park in New York City located between the Upper West Side, Upper West and Upper East Sides of Manhattan. It is the List of New York City parks, fifth-largest park in the city, covering . It is the most visited urban par ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

adjacent to the

Central Park Zoo The Central Park Zoo is a zoo located at the southeast corner of Central Park in New York City. It is part of an integrated system of four zoos and one aquarium managed by the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS). In conjunction with the Central ...

. It is centered on 64th Street west of

Fifth Avenue Fifth Avenue is a major and prominent thoroughfare in the borough of Manhattan in New York City. It stretches north from Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village to West 143rd Street in Harlem. It is one of the most expensive shopping stre ...

. Built between 1847 and 1851 as a storehouse for arms and ammunition for the New York State Militia, the building is the second-oldest extant structure that was constructed within Central Park, predating the park's construction; only the 1814

Blockhouse No. 1 Blockhouse No. 1, colloquially known as The Blockhouse, is a small fort in the North Woods section of Central Park, Manhattan, New York City. Finished in 1814, the Blockhouse is the second-oldest structure in the park, after Cleopatra's Needle, ...

is older. The Arsenal was designed by

Martin E. Thompson Martin Euclid Thompson (1786–1877) was an American architect and artist prolific in nineteenth-century New York City, and a co-founder of the National Academy of Design. Landmarks Preservation Commission (New York City)br>LP-0312 October 12 ...

, originally trained as a carpenter, who had been a partner of Ithiel Town and went on to become one of the founders of the

National Academy of Design The National Academy of Design is an honorary association of American artists, founded in New York City in 1825 by Samuel Morse, Asher Durand, Thomas Cole, Martin E. Thompson, Charles Cushing Wright, Ithiel Town, and others "to promote the fin ...

. Thompson's symmetrical structure of brick in English bond, with headers every fifth course, presents a central block in the manner of a fortified gatehouse flanked by half-octagonal towers. The carpentry doorframe speaks of its purpose with a

bald eagle The bald eagle (''Haliaeetus leucocephalus'') is a bird of prey found in North America. A sea eagle, it has two known subspecies and forms a species pair with the white-tailed eagle (''Haliaeetus albicilla''), which occupies the same niche as ...

displayed between stacks of cannonballs over the door, and crossed sabers and stacked pikes represented in flanking panels. The lobby contains a series of floor-to-ceiling murals by

Allen Saalburg Allen Russell Saalburg (1899–1987) was an American painter, illustrator, and screen printer born in Rochelle, Illinois. His father was the cartoonist Charles W. Saalburg. He studied at the Art Students League of New York before working in adver ...

from 1935-36, combining historical vignettes of New York life during the

Civil War A civil war or intrastate war is a war between organized groups within the same state (or country). The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies ...

with ornamental scrolls and arabesques.Crowther, Prudence
"When the Delay is the Gratification: Allen Saalburg,"
''Art in Print'' Vol. 7, No. 4 (November-December 2017), p. 31. The building currently houses the offices of the

New York City Department of Parks and Recreation The New York City Department of Parks and Recreation, also called the Parks Department or NYC Parks, is the department of the government of New York City responsible for maintaining the city's parks system, preserving and maintaining the ecolog ...

and the nearby Central Park Zoo, but it has also served as a zoo and housed the

American Museum of Natural History The American Museum of Natural History (abbreviated as AMNH) is a natural history museum on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City. In Theodore Roosevelt Park, across the street from Central Park, the museum complex comprises 26 inter ...

's collections while the museum's permanent structure was being erected. During the course of its lifetime it has also housed a police precinct, a weather bureau, and an art gallery.

References

''New York Times'' article''History of The Arsenal'' article from the New York City Department of Parks & Recreation
Central Park New York City New York 28

{{coord, 40.767674, -73.971250, format=dms, display=title, type:landmark Central Park American Museum of Natural History Arsenals 1851 establishments in New York (state) New York City Designated Landmarks in Manhattan

See also

References