Inside Central Park's Lost Casino
In 1864, a two-room stone cottage was built inside Central Park, just south of the Inventor’s Gate entrance at Fifth Avenue and 72nd Street. The quaint building was used as the Ladies’ Refreshment Saloon, where unaccompanied women could rest and grab a bite to eat. Public life in the 19th century was segregated by sex and restaurants were deemed masculine haunts. “Respectable” women did not dine alone in public and those that did, were automatically assumed to be prostitutes.
