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Bethesda Terrace's two levels are united by two grand staircases and a lesser one that passes under Terrace Drive. They provide passage southward to the Central Park Mall and Naumburg Bandshell at the center of the park. The upper terrace flanks the 72nd Street Cross Drive and the lower terrace provides a podium for viewing the Lake. The mustard-olive colored carved stone is New Brunswick sandstone, with a harder stone for cappings, with granite steps and landings, and herringbone pattern paving of Roman brick laid on edge.
In Calvert Vaux and Frederick Law Olmsted's 1858 Greensward Plan, the terrace at the end of the Mall overlooking the naturalistic landscape of the Lake was simply called The Water Terrace, but after the unveiling of the angel, its name was changed to Bethesda Terrace.
Construction of the terrace and fountain occurred during the American Civil War. Only two major structures besides the Bethesda Terrace were completed during the Civil War: the Music Stand and the Casino restaurant, both demolished.
By the end of 1861, work on Bethesda Terrace was well underway. The stonework to be installed in the terrace arrived in 1862, and the masonry of the fountain was installed by 1863.
In 1864, the stonework of Bethesda Terrace was completed except for minor details, and the Central Park commission hired a sculptor to design the figures for the Fountain. The upper level of the Terrace was mostly built by 1867, by which time the Fountain's figures were being cast in bronze.
More information: Central Park Conservancy
The original plans had called for marble and bronze figures to be installed on the upper level, but those were not executed. The Bethesda Fountain was officially completed in 1873.
Bethesda Fountain is the central feature on the lower level of the terrace. The pool is centered by a fountain sculpture designed by Emma Stebbins in 1868 and unveiled in 1873. Also called the Angel of the Waters, the statue refers to Healing the paralytic at Bethesda, a story from the Gospel of John about an angel blessing the Pool of Bethesda, giving it healing powers. It was the only statue funded by the city in the original design for the park. Stebbins was the first woman to receive a public commission for a major work of art in New York City.
The 2.4 m bronze statue depicts a female winged angel touching down upon the top of the fountain, where water spouts and cascades into an upper basin and into the surrounding pool.
Beneath her are four four-foot cherubs representing temperance, purity, health, and peace. The statue alludes to the Croton Aqueduct, the first pure-water aqueduct in New York City, which opened in 1842 on the site of Central Park. The angel carries a lily in one hand, representing purity, and with the other hand she blesses the water below.
The lower basin has water lilies, lotus, and papyrus, inspired by an illustration in an 1891 book by Vaux's assistant and partner Samuel Parsons, the Superintendent of Planting in Central Park.
The base of the fountain was designed by Calvert Vaux, with sculptural details by Mould. The panels of carving in the abstracted organic style propounded by Owen Jones, a mentor of the sculptor Jacob Wrey Mould are organized by an iconographical program of themes: the Seasons, the Times of Day, the Ages of Mankind.
More information: Friends of the Old Croton Aqueduct
There's a spot in Central Park, the Bethesda Fountain,
where if you sit there long enough, the entire city walks by.
Alex Whitman
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