Central Park: North Meadow Ball Fields – New York NY

City:
New York, New York City, NY

Site Type:
Parks and Recreation, Athletic Courts and Fields

New Deal Agencies:
Civil Works Administration (CWA), Work Relief Programs, Works Progress Administration (WPA)

Started:
1934

Completed:
1938

Quality of Information:
Very Good

Marked:
No

Site Survival:
Extant

Description

Though Central Park was created in the 19th century by Olmsted and Vaux, the New Deal help the Parks Department carry out massive improvements to the park from 1934 to 1938.  Work relief funds and labor were used to create 15 new baseball fields in the old North Meadow, where ball playing had long gone on informally.   

 

 

Source notes

https://www.kermitproject.org Rosenzweig, Roy, and Elizabeth Blackmar, The Park and the People: A History of Central Park, Cornell University Press (1992), pp.448-451. Caro, Robert A., The Power Broker - Robert Moses and the Fall of New York, Vintage Books (1974), pp.368-372. The Report of the Department of Parks to August 1934: Memorandum on 1935 Budget Request of the Department of Parks, NYC Department of Parks archive. https://www.kermitproject.org/newdeal/centralpark/northmeadow1.html

Site originally submitted by Frank da Cruz on March 1, 2017.

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