The Dairy

64-03 Center Drive | also 1000 5th Avenue | Central Park | built 1871

The city photographed every building for its tax records around 1940 and again in the 1980s. NYC Municipal Archives.

Written with AI from the source each entry cites, then fact-checked.

1871
Calvert Vaux finishes the Dairy as a refreshment stop for children
Designed by Calvert Vaux as a Victorian Gothic cottage and begun in September 1869, the Dairy was completed in 1871 at the center of the park's Children's District. It sold fresh milk and snacks at a time when clean milk was hard for many city families to get, and visitors could borrow board games there.
Source: Wikipedia
1979
November
The restored Dairy reopens as Central Park's first visitor center
Robert Moses turned the Dairy into a storage building in the 1930s, its loggia was demolished in 1955, and it closed during the city's 1970s fiscal crisis. In November 1979 a restored section reopened as a visitor center, and in 1981 the Central Park Conservancy rebuilt the loggia. After another renovation it reopened in November 2021.
Source: Wikipedia
1981
The Central Park Conservancy rebuilds the Dairy's demolished south loggia
The Dairy's south-facing loggia, a covered porch overlooking the Pond, had been demolished in 1955. The Central Park Conservancy reconstructed it in 1981, restoring Calvert Vaux's Gothic Revival design closer to its original 1871 appearance.
Source: Wikipedia
2021
November
The Dairy reopens after a yearlong restoration
Funded by a fundraising campaign begun in 2016, a restoration closed the Dairy in September 2020 and reopened it in November 2021. It continues to operate as one of five Central Park Conservancy visitor centers, with its gift shop.
Source: Wikipedia

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