Bow Bridge (Central Park)

Where it sits. Bow Bridge crosses the Lake in Central Park between Cherry Hill on the south shore and the Ramble on the north, a short walk west and then north from Bethesda Terrace. It is the longest of the park's bridges and the only one designed to be looked at rather than to disappear: the others were placed to separate carriage drives, bridle paths and footpaths without drawing attention, whereas this one was built as an ornament in the middle of the view.

The design. Calvert Vaux drew it with Jacob Wrey Mould and it was completed in 1862, making it one of the earliest cast-iron bridges in the United States and, by most accounts, the second oldest still standing. The span measures 87 feet, about 27 metres, while the balustrade runs 142 feet because of the approaches at either end. The railing is a pattern of interlocking circles; eight urns sit on decorative bas-relief pedestals along the parapet, originally planted; and underneath the arch there is a run of arabesques and volutes that almost nobody looks at because everyone is standing on top of it. The ironwork was cast by Janes, Kirtland and Company, a Bronx foundry whose other commissions included the dome of the United States Capitol and the railings of the Brooklyn Bridge promenade. It is the only one of the park's seven ornamental iron bridges that does not cross a bridle path. The bridge was comprehensively restored in 1974 with private money, and closed again in November 2023 for a two-month renovation.

What you see from it. Looking east the Lake narrows towards Bethesda Terrace; looking west it opens towards Hernshead and the Ladies Pavilion, with the twin towers of the San Remo apartment building rising above the tree line on Central Park West. That combination — water, a low iron arch, bare or turning trees, and a pre-war skyline behind — is the reason the bridge is one of the most photographed structures in the park, and why it appears constantly in establishing shots, engagement photographs and television title sequences.

On screen, accurately. Central Park is among the most filmed public spaces on earth, with several hundred productions to its name, and Bow Bridge has been in the frame of a great many of them, including the Central Park musical sequence of Enchanted (2007). But it is worth being straight about the nature of that record: the bridge is almost always scenery rather than a location where a scene happens, and a good deal of what the internet attributes to it belongs to other structures. The low stone arch that stands in for wintry New York in a long list of films is Gapstow Bridge at the Pond near the park's south-east corner, not this one, and the two are constantly confused. If you are working through a film-location itinerary, treat Bow Bridge as the picture you take rather than the scene you re-enact.

The Ramble. The bridge's northern end delivers you into a 36-acre woodland that Olmsted and Vaux designed as a wild garden, with deliberately confusing paths, rock outcrops of Manhattan schist scraped bare by glaciers, and a stream. It is one of the finest migratory bird sites in the eastern United States: in late April and early May, warblers moving up the Atlantic flyway drop into what is effectively the only substantial woodland for miles, and the paths fill with birders before breakfast. More than two hundred species have been recorded in the park.

Getting there and timing. The B and C trains stop at 72nd Street, five minutes from the west approach; from the east side, the 6 at 68th Street and a walk through the park takes about fifteen minutes. There is no charge and no gate. Rowing boats can be hired from the Loeb Boathouse on the eastern arm of the Lake from spring through autumn, and passing under the arch from the water is a better use of an hour than queueing to photograph it from above. Mid to late October is the strongest fortnight; snow, when it comes, gives the bridge its best light of all, with the iron picked out black against white. Weekend afternoons bring a steady procession of photographers, so an early start makes a real difference.

What to combine it with. Bethesda Terrace, the Mall, Strawberry Fields and the Dakota on Central Park West are all within a fifteen-minute walk, which makes a compact loop taking in the park's best architecture and two of its best-known screen locations.