Arsenal (Central Park)

The Arsenal is a symmetrical brick building with modestly Gothic Revival details, located in Central Park in New York City adjacent to the Central Park Zoo.

Thompson's symmetrical structure of brick in English bond, with headers every fifth course, presents a central block in the manner of a fortified gatehouse flanked by half-octagonal towers.

The lobby contains a series of floor-to-ceiling murals by Allen Saalburg from 1935-36, combining historical vignettes of New York life during the Civil War with ornamental scrolls and arabesques.

[2] Following plans to tear it down due to dislike of its appearance, the building fell into more broad use by the 1920s and was renovated in the 1930s.

[3] The building currently houses the offices of the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation, City Parks Foundation, Historic House Trust, and the nearby Central Park Zoo as well as an art gallery known as the Arsenal Gallery, but it has also served as a zoo, a police precinct and a weather bureau and housed the American Museum of Natural History's collections while the museum's permanent structure was being erected.