Located at the West 67th entrance of Central Park, Adventure Playground was created as a conciliatory gesture by Parks Commissioner Robert Moses, after a dispute with local residents about the removal of mature trees in the park to expand parking for the nearby private restaurant, Tavern on the Green. Gifted by the Estée Lauder Foundation and opened in 1967, Adventure Playground is considered a synthesis of post-war European adventure playground design principles, the innovation landforms of Isamu Noguchi, and traditional playground design.  The designer, architect Richard Dattner, consulted extensively with childhood development experts, conducted an anthropological investigation of children playing in New York City, and led meetings with neighborhood parents to help inform the Adventure Playground as an environment for both imaginative and physical play. Constructed largely from concrete, granite blocks, and raw timber, the playground features sculpted geometric landforms, low walls and amphitheatre-style seating, modular building panels and climbing structures, such a pyramid and treehouse, and a central water channel and splash area, likely modeled after Louis Kahn’s water feature at the Salk Institute in California.  Dattner chose materials adopted from the emerging Brutalist design aesthetic; the color and texture of these materials ensured that play equipment merged seamlessly into the existing Central Park palette.