‘A Restoration’: $160 Million Davis Center Opens at Harlem Meer

The Davis Center, a remarkable multi-use recreational space positioned next to the Harlem Meer, is officially accepting visitors. Over the summer and winter, it will serve as either a pool or a skating rink. It will then be transformed into an artificial turf field during milder fall months.

The $160-million facility opened to the public on Saturday, April 26, after being announced in 2019. Construction lasted four years. The Central Park Conservancy spearheaded the project, raising $100 million in funds from private sources, while the city itself chipped in the remaining $60 million.

The Conservancy describes the Davis Center as the “capstone” of a series of investments that began in the 1980s, which targeted the stretch of Central Park above 97th Street. This began with a restoration of the Meer, the large pond just downwind from the new Davis Center, in 1989.

An official ribbon-cutting ceremony was held on the aforementioned turf covering the day before, which Straus News attended. The ceremonies featured a variety of elected officials and project leaders giving celebratory remarks, and were rounded out by spirited performances from a gospel choir and a dance troupe, as well as a fantastic poetry reading from the wise-beyond-his-years Kayden Hern.

Hern previously gained fame for being the poet laureate of Gov. Kathy Hochul’s inauguration ceremony, when he was only 9 years old. His composition for the opening of the Davis Center was entitled “In My Mind,” a bracing tale of vanquishing stereotypes.

“In my mind, I used to be a child of poverty, not knowing that hopes and dreams can become reality,” he recited. “In my mind, I thought it was fine to sit in the back of the classroom, because my teacher never asked me to read or write, but little did she know . . . I was ever so bright.”

Betsy Smith, the CEO of the Central Park Conservancy, began the first of the event’s speeches with a brief history of the site. It had formerly housed the Lasker Rink, which Smith described as both “beloved” and “situated in a way that severed Harlem communities from [Central Park’s] North Woods.” It was “plagued by chronic flooding,” she added, and could only serve the public on a “limited basis.”

The Davis Center, Smith continued, will replace that rink with a space that “fulfills the democratic vision” of Central Park’s 19th-century creators Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux.

Former NYC Mayor Mike Bloomberg, who serves on the board of the Conservancy, spoke not long afterward. He described Central Park as a place that “brings all walks of life together,” calling the Davis Center “an investment for the next generation” and a place that will be “inherited” by nearby residents.

City Council Member Gale Brewer, who represents the Upper West Side, said that the center was an “extraordinary transformation” that “honors the legacy of the Harlem Meer.” She went on to call it “a model for what community-focused public spaces can look like,” asserting that she believes it should be a “catalyst” for similar undertakings.

Yet it was Harlem Council Member Yusuf Salaam who gave the centerpiece speech of the event. Salaam was one of the Central Park Five, a group of Black teenagers who were falsely convicted for the rape of a woman that occurred in Central Park back in the 1980s. They were finally exonerated and released from prison in the 2000s.

“The unveiling of the Davis Center isn’t just about a pool, a rink, or a stunning architectural accomplishment. It’s a homecoming for me, it’s a healing for me, it’s a restoration for our community—not only our land, but our dignity as well,” Salaam said, visibly joyous. “Just steps from where I grew up, this stretch of Central Park once stood as a paradox. Beautiful, yet scarred. Welcoming to some, yet excluding others. For many of us young Black and Latino boys, like I once was, this park right in our backyard became a place that we could see, but not really safely touch.”

“The shadow of injustice loomed large here,” Salaam said. “Today, we reclaim that light.”