Central Park was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1964 and a New York City Landmark in 1974. Seneca Village was a 19th-century settlement of mostly African American landowners in the borough of Manhattan in New York City, within present-day Central Park.The settlement was located on about 5 acres (2.0 ha) near the Upper West Side neighborhood, approximately bounded by 82nd and 89th Streets and Seventh and Eighth Avenues, had they been constructed. The 843-acre green space features rolling meadows, peaceful bodies of water and stunning vistas, bringing a sense of calm to the otherwise busy City. The Imagine Mosaic in Central Park’s Strawberry Fields is an internationally funded tribute to John Lennon, ex-Beatle and long time New York City resident. The Central Park Five is a 2012 documentary film about the Central Park jogger case, directed by documentary filmmaker Ken Burns, his daughter Sarah Burns, and her husband David McMahon. It covers the arrests, interrogations, trials, convictions and vacating the convictions of the five men who were teenagers in 1989 at the time of the case. The Park was managed for decades by the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation, and is currently managed by the Central Park Conservancy under contract with the municipal government in a public-private partnership. Offering breathtaking views of both the Central Park Lake and woods, the Bethesda Terrace, located at 72nd Street Cross Drive, is an architectural marvel. The little known truth is that the park was once a neighborhood, not a pristine patch of forrest. By Steven Jacobs 10/04/01 5:00am Nestled in between 5th and 8th avenues with its center around 82nd Street, Central Park actually displaced a small African-American and Irish settlement in 1856 -- called Seneca Village. Under the sculpture, a small plaque can be found, containing the following inscription: Dedicated to the indomitable spirit of the sled dogs that relayed antitoxins six hundred miles over rough ice, across treacherous waters, through Arctic blizzards from Nenana to the relief of stricken Nome in the Winter of 1925. Contrary to what you might think, Central Park is not a preserved part of nature. On December 8th, 1980 Mr. Lennon was shot dead as he entered his home at the Dakota Apartment Building at 72nd St. and Central Park West. To mark the occasion—an historic event for the city—mayor Michael Bloomberg hosted a press conference two hundred feet below the surface of Central Park. The terrace was one of the very first structures to have been built in Central Park; its construction began in 1859, continued throughout the Civil War, and was completed in 1863. It cost more than Alaska (the New York State legislature paid $7.4 million for the acreage) and Sheep Meadow was once, literally, a grazing ground for sheep. It is a very carefully designed, intentional representation of the mid-1800s notion of an idyllic landscape. One of New York City’s most iconic landmarks, Central Park, is riddled with secrets and trivia. And so in 1851, Ambrose Kingsland, the city’s mayor, agreed to create one. According to the Louise Chipley Slavicek, author of New York’s Central Park, the pro-park lobby were largely “affluent merchants, bankers and landowners”, who wanted a “fashionable and safe public place where they and their families could mingle and promenade”. What's under Central Park? Central Park is an urban oasis.