The Charles A. Dana Discovery Center serves as the Upper Park's visitor center and is home to a wide variety of the Central Park Conservancy's free family and community programs.

The Dana Center offers seasonal exhibits in its Great Hall, often in collaboration with other City cultural institutions. Outside the Great Hall is a small deck overlooking the Meer with an unimpeded vista of the Park's landscape to the south. Educational programs are held throughout the year upstairs.

Adjacent to the Center is a small plaza where jazz concerts and other events (such as the Halloween Pumpkin Sail of candlelit Jack O'Lanterns across the Meer) take place. Young plantings of bald cypress, red maple, and a weeping willow – all trees that thrive at the water's edge – surround the plaza.