Riverside Park: Playgrounds - New York NY

City:: New York, New York City, NY
Site Type:: Parks and Recreation, Playgrounds
New Deal Agencies:: Public Works Funding, Work Relief Programs, Public Works Administration (PWA), Works Progress Administration (WPA), Civil Works Administration (CWA)
Started:: 1934
Completed:: 1941
Quality of Information:: Very Good
Site Survival:: Extant

Description

Researcher Frank da Cruz explains that: “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…

The construction of Riverside 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.”(kermitproject.org)

Da Cruz also reports here that “so many playgrounds were built in the West Side Improvment that the press releases mention them only in passing, if at all, without specifics. Names were given to most of them only much later.” The several playgrounds pictured here are just some of the many playgrounds built by the New Deal in Riverside Park that are still in use today.