Central Park was founded in 1856 and laid out by Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux, and it is large enough that the side you arrive on decides most of your day. There is no centre to work outwards from, so the useful plan is a narrow one: one entrance, one lawn or ball field, one place to eat, and short distances between them.
Two things are worth knowing before you settle in. Dogs may be off leash from 6am to 9am and again from 9pm to 1am, which makes a sunrise walk a different experience from a midday one, though in named areas including The Ramble, Strawberry Fields and the Conservatory Garden dogs stay leashed around the clock. Restrooms are spread across the park and free to use, with one exception: the restroom at the Central Park Zoo requires a purchase to get in.
The trade-off is that parts of the park close without the park closing. Ball fields shut for the season every winter, and those closures apply to individual areas rather than to the park as a whole, so the field you built an afternoon around can be out of use while everything beside it stays open.
