Thursday, December 18, 2025 – OVER A MILE OF PATHS MADE FOR SLEIGH RIDING

By admin

This ForgottenStretch

of Central Park was

OriginallyIntended to be a

Road That Celebrated Winter

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 18, 2025


ISSUE #1595


EPHEMERAL NEW YORK

Central Park after a snowfall has always been magical—trees frosted white, soft tufts blanketing hills, and New Yorkers treading carefully across icy pathways, taking in the luminous enchantment.

In the 1850s, the designers of Central Park, Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux, seemed to anticipate this wintertime beauty. They gave thought to park features that could enhance the charms of frigid temperatures and convince New Yorkers to enjoy the park in all seasons.

The skating pond Olmsted and Vaux created accomplished this. It was a smash hit when the pond opened in 1858, not long after the two designers got the go-ahead to build their vision of a park. The pond attracted an estimated 30,000 people to try out this new form of recreation.

Their other idea was more atmospheric: a long scenic road spanning 72nd to 102nd Street “along the low grounds west of the reservoirs,” according to an 1858 New York Times story. This appropriately named road was called the “Winter Drive.”

The Winter Drive would consist of a mile and a half of thick rows of evergreens, so sleigh riders would feel like they were in snow-covered conifer countryside, not an urban park.

An 1858 New York Daily Herald article summed up the proposal.

“Large open glades of grass are introduced among these plantations of evergreens, as the effect aimed at is not so much of a drive through a thick forest, crowded with tall spindling trees, as through a richly wooded country, in which the single trees and copses have had plenty of space for developing their distinctive characteristics to advantage.”

The Winter Drive would be marked by its own bridge near West 82nd Street, Winterdale Arch. This graceful stone bridge, constructed in 1861, “is named for its location on the Winter Drive, between Seventy-Second Street and 102nd Street,” states a post from NYC Department of Records & Information Services.

“When planning the west side of the park, Olmsted and Vaux intended for this section to be planted with a variety of evergreens, to add color throughout the winter for carriage- and sleigh-riders,” per the department.

In the early years, the Winter Drive was put to good use. Sleigh riding for leisure was a popular winter activity in the 19th century city, and a drive on steel rails must have been a thrilling way to experience this 843-acre green space wonderland.

Unfortunately, all the conifers Olmsted and Vaux planted along the Winter Drive in 1861 were lost by the end of the century, states the Central Park Conservatory.

Over time, it seems that the Winter Drive name was forgotten. Winter Drive was absorbed into West Drive, which winds along the west side of the park.

Walk along the West Drive today, however, and you’ll see conifer trees similar to those that would have lined the drive in the post-Civil War era.

In the 1970s, “philanthropist Arthur Ross returned pine trees to the area, funding the planting of the Arthur Ross Pinetum just to the north,” states the Central Park Conservatory.

“Additional evergreen plantings by the Central Park Conservancy have also returned the look and feel of the ‘Winter Drive’ to this area of the Park.”

It might be hard to find a sleigh these days. But walk along this stretch of Central Park after a snowfall, and you’ll see the newer conifers laden with fluffy snow—part of a lovely winter landscape park visitors in the 1860s to 1890s would have well recognized.

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EPHEMERAL NEW YORK

[Second image: hand-colored woodcut of a Thulstrup illustration; third image: MCNY, 93.1.1.17790; fourth image: MCNY, F2011.33.922; fifth image: NYPL Digital Collections]

Tags: Central Park in winter, Central Park The Winter Drive, Early Central Park Features, Sleigh Riding Winter Drive Central Park, sleighs in Central Park, Sleighs in New York City 19th Century, Winter Drive in Central Park, Winter Drive Olmsted Vaux Central Park
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