Photo: Frank da Cruz, July 29, 2014.
See Orchard Beach gallery
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Orchard Beach bathhouse sign 2014
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Orchard
Beach, Pelham Bay, Bronx, New York, “The Bronx Riviera”,
created by the federal Work Projects Administration (WPA) from a plan
developed in 1934 by NYC Parks Department architects, landscape architects,
and engineers paid by the federal Civil Works Administration (CWA), among
them architect
Aymar
Embury II, who designed the bathhouse and promenade (seen at
left in the photo above). Embury is credited in the sign posted at the site
(left; click to enlarge it) and the references below. And as noted in most
of the references, and in the
main
Orchard Beach gallery at this site, the bathhouse has been in a serious
state of decay for decades and has been closed since 2007. A $50,000,000
redevelopment project was announced by the City in 2017[5] with another $6
million added by the Bronx Borough President in 2019[6].
LET US HOPE that the renovation includes an exhibit explaining how
this massive project — Beach, Bathhouse, Pavilion, outbuildings, game
courts, landscaping, parking lot, infrastructure, and all the rest —
was designed and engineered by architects, and built by workers, paid
by the federal New Deal, and how none of it would exist without the New
Deal.
References:
- Orchard
Beach Bathhouse and Promenade, New York City Landmarks Preservation
Commission 2006/06/06 #377 LP-2197: "Constructed 1934-37; Aymar
Embury II, Consulting Architect; Gilmore D. Clarke and Michael
Rapuano, Consulting Landscape Architects."
- A
Landmark Pavilion at Orchard Beach — past, present, and future
(announcing a 2012 exhibit), New York Public Library website, accessed 15
November 2019: "Recognized by the New York Landmarks Preservation
Commission as 'among the most remarkable public recreational facilities ever
constructed in the United States,” Orchard Beach is a site to be
celebrated. It was seventy-five years ago, on July 25, 1936, that the Beach
was dedicated, even though its grand Pavilion would not be completed until
the following summer. This structure, designed by Aymar Embury II,
who was Parks Department Consulting Architect at the time, is considered an
Art Deco monument combining Moderne and classical features."
- A
High-Minded Pavilion for a Day on the Sand, New York Times, 24
September 2011, p.RE4: "Robert Moses' oversize stamp on New York City in the
1930s included not only 11 huge swimming pools, but also beaches, among them
Orchard, half a mile of white sand in a great curve facing Long Island
Sound, northeast of City Island. Moses played the federal relief programs
as if they were his; at one point he had 69,000 men working on projects. At
Orchard Beach he worked with Aymar Embury II, a
Princeton-trained engineer who was also a discriminating designer of
gentry-class clubs and private houses." [The beach is a mile long, not
half a mile.]
- In
Bronx, a Beach That Moses Build, New York Times, 27 January 2013,
Section MB, p.2: "In winter 1934, Robert Moses, then parks commissioner,
brought Gilmore D. Clarke and Aymar Embury II, who were the
department’s consulting landscape architect and architect, out in his
Packard to see what they could make of the place. At the time, the beach was
just a sandbar between a cluster of islands to the north and Rodman's
Neck. In just two years, they used landfill to build 115 new acres for the
park and created the 1.1-mile-long beach that exists today. The bathhouse
pavilion that Embury designed was completed in 1937, the year after Mayor
Fiorello H. La Guardia celebrated the opening of Orchard Beach with 10,000
New Yorkers and a lot of fireworks. The colonnaded structure has two wings
embracing a central plaza and once housed restaurants, shops, showers and
changing rooms."
- Mayor
Announces $50 Million Redevelopment of Orchard Beach Pavilion, Cityland,
New York School of Law, 05/31/2017.
- Bronx
Borough President Allocates an Extra $6 Million to Restore Orchard Beach
Pavilion, Cityland, New York School of Law, 08/01/2019.