Bethesda Fountain is the spiritual center of Central Park and the only ornamental fountain that was part of the original park design. Central Park was designed by Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux, who won the design competition in 1858 with their Greensward Plan, which created a romantic landscape of winding paths and naturalistic scenery on 843 acres of scrubby farmland and rocky outcrops. Before the park was built, Seneca Village, a thriving African American community of about 270 residents with three churches and a school, was demolished by eminent domain, its residents scattered.
The park took fifteen years and twenty thousand workers to complete. The Bethesda Fountain, dedicated in 1873, was sculpted by Emma Stebbins, the first woman to receive a major public art commission in New York, and its Angel of the Waters figure, rising above the basin, commemorates the Croton Aqueduct that brought pure water to the city in 1842. Picture the Mall through the arcade to the fountain before you: this is the view that appears on more postcards than almost any other in the park.