page_title: Central Park
section_title: Structures and exhibitions
hierarchical_section_title: Central Park / Landmarks and structures / Art and monuments / Structures and exhibitions
caption_attribution_description: English: Cleopatra's Needle, Central Park, Manhattan, New York City. This is an image of a place or building that is listed on the National Register of Historic Places in the United States of America. Its reference number is 66000538
context_page_description: Central Park is an urban park in New York City located between the Upper West and Upper East Sides of Manhattan. It is the fifth-largest park in the city by area, covering 843 acres. It is the most visited urban park in the United States with an estimated 38 million visitors annually, and is the most filmed location in the world.
  Following proposals for a large park in Manhattan during the 1840s, it was approved in 1853 to cover 778 acres. In 1857, the landscape architects Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux won a design competition for the park with their "Greensward Plan". Construction began the same year, and the park's first areas were opened to the public in late 1858. Additional land at the northern end of Central Park was purchased in 1859, and the park was completed in 1876. After a period of decline in the early 20th century, New York City parks commissioner Robert Moses started a program to clean up Central Park. The Central Park Conservancy, created in 1980 to combat further deterioration in the late 20th century, refurbished many parts of the park during the 1980s and 1990s.
context_section_description: Cleopatra's Needle, a red granite obelisk west of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, is the oldest man-made structure in Central Park. The needle in Central Park is one of three Cleopatra's Needles that were originally erected at the Temple of Ra in Heliopolis in Ancient Egypt around 1450 BC by the Pharaoh Thutmose III. The hieroglyphs were inscribed about 200 years later by Pharaoh Rameses II to glorify his military victories. The needles are so named because they were later moved to in front of the Caesarium in Alexandria, a temple originally built by Cleopatra VII of Egypt in honor of Mark Antony. The needle in Central Park arrived in late 1880 and was dedicated early the following year.
  The Strawberry Fields memorial, near Central Park West and 72nd Street, is a memorial commemorating John Lennon, who was murdered outside the nearby Dakota apartment building. The city dedicated Strawberry Fields in Lennon's honor in April 1981, and the memorial was completely rebuilt and rededicated on what would have been Lennon's 45th birthday, October 9, 1985. Countries from all around the world contributed trees, and Italy donated the "Imagine" mosaic in the center of the memorial. It has since become the site of impromptu memorial gatherings for other notables.
  For 16 days in 2005, Central Park was the setting for Christo and Jeanne-Claude's installation The Gates, an exhibition that had been planned since 1979.  Although the project was the subject of mixed reactions, it was a major attraction for the park while it was open, drawing over a million people.
caption: Cleopatra's Needle, the park's oldest man-made structure
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