But not just any bench. It’s a Central Park settee.
While today’s Central Park boasts about 10,000 benches, the settee was there from the beginning. Its design is original to the park’s creation and was first reported on in the 1870s.
Despite their sturdy construction, these settees are actually quite delicate in appearance and reflect the natural beauty of the park.
“See how they’re almost transparent, how they let the light through,” the New York Times reported in 1994. “They define the edge of the landscape without drawing attention to themselves.”
This description echoes the spirit of Olmsted’s Greensward plan for Central Park in 1858, which said that artificial structures should be subservient to the main idea, and that the park itself should always be uppermost in the mind of the beholder.
The settees you see around the park today are recreations made after 1994, manufactured by Kenneth Lynch & Sons. They are made of an H-shaped cast iron base, with wooden slats for the seat and back rests.
Even though the settee was the original, it is not the only type of bench you’ll find in Central Park. It sits among newcomers to the Central Park scene like the 1939 World’s Fair bench and the aptly named concrete and wood bench.
Today, you can adopt a settee yourself and leave your own mark on the park. It’ll only run you about $10,000.