$45 Million Renovation Planned for Park Police Station

October 12, 2007

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg kicked off the renovation of the Central Park Precinct’s station house on the 86th Street Traverse Road at a news conference yesterday afternoon. The mayor said the city would spend about $45 million on the project, which he said would bring the station into the 21st century while preserving the historic building’s 19th-century details.

Originally built in 1871, the Central Park Precinct house  was used as a horse stable. It was converted into a police station in 1936. In 2001, the city built a temporary metal building near the station, and the precinct moved in so the building that was a stable could be renovated.

Fred Basch, a project manager with Karlsberger Architecture, who is overseeing the renovation, said the project would involve completely gutting the building’s interior while preserving the original brownstone facade. The building, designed by Jacob Rey Mould, an architect who collaborated on most of the famous structures in the park, is a Victorian Gothic structure, which Mr. Basch called “highly stylized.”

The work is scheduled for completion in 2010. The original stable was built as one story with a hayloft, which the police precinct used as a second floor. The new building will expand into a full two stories, and some of the existing courtyard will be used for needed interior space, Mr. Basch said.

He said the project posed two challenges: preserving the historic character of the building, and installing the high-tech equipment needed for modern police work.

“It was not designed as a precinct,” he said. “It was designed for horses.”