Riverside Park New Deal Tour

Frank da Cruz
fdc@columbia.edu
July 23, 2015
Last update: Tue Feb 16 10:27:37 2021
NYC New Deal Highlights ← (new)
New Deal sites in Manhattan's Riverside Park. Photos (except where otherwise indicated) taken by me on July 23, 2015, walking from south (72nd Street) to north (148th Street) and presented in that order.

Although Riverside Park and Riverside Drive were created between 1875 and 1910 from plans by Frederick Law Olmstead, Calvert Vaux, and Samuel Parsons, the park was marred by having the New York Central Railroad run through its length, thus ruining the desired bucolic effect and blocking access to the Hudson River. By 1934, the park was in terrible shape; Robert Moses and the NY City Parks Department, using New Deal funding, designers, and labor completely leveled the original park and replaced it with a new one in which the railroad ran beneath ground level and which, unlike the original park, was full of playgrounds, ball fields, and game courts. While the original park stretched from 72nd to 125th Street, the new one went all the way north past the George Washington Bridge to Dyckman Street.

The construction of Riverside Park (a term everybody understands to encompass the park along the Hudson River from 72nd to Dyckman Street, even though the part north of 155th Street is properly known as Fort Washington Park*) was a mammoth undertaking supported mainly by PWA, CWA, and WPA from 1934 to 1941, such a huge undertaking that the records don't even bother to mention individual features like specific playgrounds, ballfields, paths, comfort stations, game courts, and so on, of which there are many. In general I believe it is safe to say of Riverside Park that “If it doesn't look new, it's New Deal” in the absence of evidence to the contrary. Prominent features that are new include everything south of 72nd Street, Cherry Walk along river between 100th and 125th Streets and several other “Greenway” extensions to fill in the missing pieces of the path along the riverbank, e.g. the segment from 86th to 90th Street and the whole area from 125th to 145th Street along the River: "West Harlem Piers", the sewage treatment plant and the new ground-level path around it, the upper part of the Peter Jay Sharp Volunteer House in the Park at West 107th Street.
___________________

As Robert Caro points out in his biography of Robert Moses, The Power Broker, ”The public used the name 'Riverside Park' to refer to both parks and so, for the sake of simplicity, will this book”[p.526], and so will I, usually.
  (Click on any photo to enter)

History and construction

riverside1925 riverside hudson1937

72nd-78th Street

eleanorroosevelt1 eleanorroosevelt2 riverside0 riverside1 riverside2 riverside3 riverside4 riverside5 riverside6 riverside7 riverside9 riverside10 riverside8 riverside11 riverside12 riverside13 riverside14 riverside15 riverside16 riverside17

The 79th Street Boat Basin

boatbasin boatbasincloser boatbasin1 boatbasin2 boatbasin8 boatbasin9 boatbasin3 boatbasin5 boatbasin4 boatbasincafe boatbasin6 boatbasin7

Riverside Park 79th Street to 89th Street

riverside18 riverside19 riverside20 riverside21 riverside22 riverside23 riverside24 riverside25 riverside26

Soldiers and Sailors Monument at 89th Street

soldiersandsailors1 soldiersandsailors2 soldiersandsailors3 soldiersandsailors4 soldiersandsailors5 soldiersandsailors6 soldiersandsailors7

Riverside Park 90th - 92nd Street

riverside27 riverside28 riverside29 riverside30

Joan of Arc Statue at 93rd Street

joanofarc3 joanofarc1 joanofarc2

Riverside Park 94th - 99th Street

riverside31 riverside32 riverside34 riverside33 riverside35 riverside36

Firemen's Memorial at 100th Street

firemans1 firemans2 firemans3 firemans4

Riverside Park 101st - 122nd Street

riverside38 riverside37 riverside39 riverside40 riverside1986 riverside41 riverside42 riverside43 riversidetunnel riverside44 riverside45 riverside46 riverside47 riverside48 riverside49 riverside50 riverside51 riverside52 riverside53 riverside54 riverside55 riverside56 riverside57 riverside58 riverside59 riverside60 riverside61 riverside62

Grant's Tomb

grantstomb1 grantstomb2 grantstomb3 grantstomb4 grantstomb15 grantstomb16 grantstomb5 grantstomb7 grantstomb8 grantstomb9 grantstomb10 grantstomb11 grantstomb12 grantstomb13 grantstomb14

Riverside Park 124th Street to 181st Street

riverside63 riverside64 riverside65 riverside66 riverside67 riverside69 riverside70 riverside71 riverside72 riverside73 riverside74 riverside75 riverside76 riverside77 riverside78 riverside79 riverside80 riverside81 riverside82 riverside83 riverside84 riverside85 riverside86

The Henry Hudson Parkway

hudson1 hudson2 hudson3 hudson4 hudson5 hudson6 hudson7 hudson8 hudson9 hudson10 hudson11 hudson12 hudson13 henryhudsonbridge henryhudsonmemorial

Created by Photogallery 3.07 February 16, 2021