After the New York Meteorological Observatory automated its equipment and moved its offices to Rockefeller Center in the 1960s, Belvedere Castle was closed to the public and became an object of much vandalism, neglect and deterioration. The Central Park Conservancy launched a restoration effort and reopened the structure on May 1, 1983. The original turret was replaced, the pavilions were rebuilt, and the castle was converted into a visitor center. In 1995, the Conservancy's Historic Preservation Crew replaced the painted wooden loggia of the castle, working from Vaux's designs, on the granite piers and walls that had survived. The same year, a $340,000 grant was distributed toward restoring the castle as the Henry Luce Nature Center. That restoration was completed in 1996.