Central Park Sheep Meadow

Sheep Meadow is a 15-acre lawn in the southwest section of Central Park where actual sheep grazed from 1864 until 1934, when Robert Moses relocated them to Prospect Park and eventually the Brooklyn Zoo.

The meadow is one of the most intensively used open spaces in the world, with thousands of sunbathers, picnickers, and readers covering the grass on warm weekend days. The sight of a vast lawn packed with New Yorkers on a summer Saturday is one of the defining images of the city.

Sheep Meadow was the site of major anti-Vietnam War rallies in the 1960s and 1970s, when hundreds of thousands of demonstrators gathered on the lawn to protest American military involvement in Southeast Asia.

The meadow is designated a 'quiet zone' where active sports are prohibited, creating a rare space in Manhattan where the primary activity is simply lying on the grass. The adjacent Tavern on the Green restaurant, in the former sheepfold building, serves visitors at the park's edge.

Sheep Meadow provides the simplest and most democratic pleasure in Central Park: a broad expanse of grass where the only requirement for admission is the willingness to sit down and enjoy the sky above Manhattan.