Bethesda Terrace is credited to Calvert Vaux, but the real genius belongs to Jacob Wrey Mould, the decorative artist who wove Italian, Gothic, Celtic and Moorish designs into a single coherent vision decades before Art Nouveau caught on.

The proof is in the details: hand-carved natural motifs on each pier, seasonal railings that shift from spring through winter as you descend, and sculpture-filled pillars depicting owls and bats for night, roosters for dawn, bird nests for spring, witches and pumpkins for autumn.

The terrace sits where Central Park's romantic vision meets practical infrastructure, bridging the park's two halves beneath a transverse road.

VoiceMap's tours reveal how Mould's designs foreshadowed the entire trajectory of early 1900s decorative arts, using Bethesda to trace the fingerprints of artistic revolution across a Victorian American park.