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If you’re going to complete this quest, bring a GPS tracker or have a damn good internal compass. Comb the southern area of Central Park and keep your eyes to the ground. Look for a rocky area and then scan the surfaces for an unnatural addition.
Connect the dots correctly, you’ll find a certain unmarked relic of which few are aware.
The discovery itself isn’t much to see. It’s merely a bolt a long, jagged piece of metal that was battered into the ground some 200 years ago.
But it’s one of the last vestiges of lost New York that lives in plain sight without an official plaque highlighting its existence. And it’s become a popular treasure hunt for New York history enthusiasts and surveying hobbyists alike, a group of people who prefer not to divulge their knowledge of the relics' precise locations.
The bolt was hammered by John Randel Jr, the surveyor and brains behind the Manhattan Grid. In 1808 he was given the task of planning and commencing the beastly project of transforming the as-of-yet piecemeal-designed New York City into the modern gridded metropolis we know today. For years he surveyed and mapped his vision for the new city. Finally, in 1811 he submitted his designs to the city of New York.
In the early 19th century, John Randel Jr. set about planning what would become the gridded street plan of Manhattan. Randel spent ten years walking the entirety of the city, marking each future intersection with either a bolt or marble monument. Two hundred years later, one of the bolts still survives in a hidden spot in Central Park.
