of Sheep Meadow was set aside for a plant nursery to store plants and trees that would be installed during these renovations. At the same time, the successive generations of sheep in the meadow were supposedly inbreeding, leading to alleged deformities in later generations. In 1934, to make way for a restaurant in the sheepfold, park commissioner Robert Moses evicted the sheep from Sheep Meadow. The sheep were moved to Prospect Park in Brooklyn and soon thereafter moved to a farm near Otisville, New York, in the Catskill Mountains. After the sheep were removed, the sheepfold was converted into what later became the Tavern on the Green restaurant. The restaurant opened in October 1934. Restorations The large events and the lack of maintenance of the 1960s and 1970s severely eroded the lawn, and it was one of the first parts of Central Park to be restored by the Central Park Conservancy. This led New York state government to give $310,000 toward replacing Sheep Meadow's sod in 1979. With the help of James Taylor, who held a free benefit concert that July, the city renovated the meadow and installed a sprinkler system beginning in September 1979. The renovation was supposed to be completed within six or seven months, but because of discrepancies during construction, the grass began turning brown before the renovation was complete, and the reopening date was delayed. Sheep Meadow was reopened in September 1980. Once the lawn was reopened, team sports were banned and had to use the Great Lawn instead. In 1985, Sheep Meadow and four city beaches were designated as "quiet zones" where loud radio-playing was prohibited. In 1992, a consortium of cheese producers brought a flock of sheep to graze on the meadow as a promotional stunt. They also pledged to finance the meadow's maintenance through 1993. In November 2000, the Central Park Conservancy began the installation of a new irrigation system. The project, funded from a grant by the Marc Haas Foundation, was completed in five months, and Sheep Meadow reopened in April 2001. Features Sheep Meadow is on the western side of Central Park just north of the 65th Street transverse road. Adjacent features include The Dairy and Central Park Carousel to the southeast, Central Park Mall to the east, The Ramble and Lake to the north, Strawberry Fields memorial to the northwest, West Drive to the west, and Heckscher Playground and Ballfields