The Concert in Central Park show named the musicians individually and did not bill them as "Simon & Garfunkel"; that the two singers would perform together on stage in a reunion was not officially announced until only a week before the concert when it was published in New York newspapers. The two stated in interviews that further collaboration was not planned. The concert took place on Saturday, September 19, 1981, on the Great Lawn, the central open space of Central Park. The first spectators, many carrying chairs or picnic blankets, arrived at daybreak to secure a good spot. The Parks Department originally expected about 300,000
The Concert in Central Park York City's Central Park, an oasis that functions as the city's "green lung", was in a state of deterioration in the mid-1970s. Though Central Park had been designated a National Historic Landmark in 1962, at the start of the 1980s, the city lacked the financial resources to spend an estimated US$3,000,000 to restore or even to maintain the park. The nonprofit Central Park Conservancy was founded in 1980, and began a successful campaign to raise renovation funds. In the early 1980s, Parks Commissioner Gordon Davis, responsible for New York City's green areas, and Ron Delsener, one of the city's most