Central Park re-opens secret sanctuary after 80 years

A visitor walks around the Central Park Hallett Nature Sanctuary in New York on May 12, after it re-opened to the public after being closed since the 1930's. [Photo provided to China Daily]

Eighty years after it was shut off to the world, New York has reopened a secret woodland sanctuary a stone's throw from Fifth Avenue, just in time for summer.

The 1.6-hectare Hallett Nature Sanctuary is one of three areas of woodland in Central Park, the huge expanse of nature in the Big Apple visited each year by an astonishing 43 million people.

The little sanctuary is hidden away at the southeastern end of the park, just meters from bustling designer boutiques and luxury high-rise apartment blocks. For decades it was fenced off and allowed to overrun.

"It was closed by the park commissioner Robert Moses in the '30s and Robert Moses thought it would become a bird sanctuary," says Doug Blonsky, president and CEO of the Central Park Conservancy, a non-profit organization that raises 75 percent of the park's annual budget.

"Unfortunately what happens, particularly in a urban environment, if you leave an area closed for a long time, invasive species or plant material take over, forcing out the natives," he says.

In 2001, the Central Park Conservancy decided to restore the sanctuary, which at the time had been completely taken over by wisteria strangling the woodland.

It took years to win the wisteria war. Schools and volunteers were enlisted. "A lot of people think wisteria is a beautiful plant with purple flowers. But if you let it go, it will take over an entire environment," Blonsky explains.

Rustic foot paths have been designed and covered in woodchips, and a pretty wooden gate has been installed at the entrance.

Wild local plants have been replanted and benches at the top of the promontory allow people to take in the view or listen to the birds while sitting hidden in the greenery, the skyscrapers south of the park poking out above the canopy.