New Deal Park Structures Face Demolition in NYC

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East River Park, 1938. Tennis Center Comfort Station in foreground; Track House in far background. Photo: NYC Parks Photo Archive

East River Park, a ribbon of greenspace that runs along Manhattan’s Lower East Side waterfront, was part of a visionary plan of Parks Commissioner Robert Moses and Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia, who together oversaw a massive wave of New Deal construction in New York. The 1.5-mile-long park was integral to plans for East River Drive (now the FDR Drive), one of Manhattan’s primary north-south arteries, which received federal funding in 1935.

Moses insisted that construction include a waterfront park, even though extensive landfill would be required on the highway’s eastern border. Such a recreational amenity would be a healthful benefit for the crowded Lower East Side immigrant community. This transformative plan also included public housing on the highway’s western border. The first such apartment complex, the Vladeck Houses, opened in 1940, a year after East River Park.

Track House. East River Park, Manhattan. Photo: LESPI

The importance of East River Park—as the Lower East Side’s largest open space—is demonstrated by the team assembled for its construction. Gilmore D. Clarke, the leading landscape architect for New York City’s New Deal projects, designed the grounds, while Aymar Embury II, lead architect, was responsible for the buildings. These include the very distinctive Track House and Tennis Center Comfort Station, now threatened with demolition. Embury is the architect responsible for many New Deal landmarks, including the Triborough Bridge, the Orchard Beach Bathhouse in the Bronx, and Prospect Park Zoo in Brooklyn. Yet, even for modest, utilitarian structures such as these in East River Park, Embury gave uncommon attention to materials, massing, and design motifs specific to the site.

The Track House and Tennis Center Comfort Station are the only two surviving buildings of five such structures once populating East River Park. They will be razed, along with the entire park, as part of the East Coastal Resiliency Plan, meant to fortify this vulnerable area against flooding.  The ground level will be raised up 8 – 10 feet and a new park will be built on top.

Tennis Center Comfort Station. East River Park, Manhattan. Photo: LESPI

A grassroots organization, Lower East Side Preservation Initiative (LESPI), is rallying to save the Park’s Track House and Tennis Comfort Station. Supported by eight local preservation groups, LESPI applied to the New York State Historic Preservation Office (SHPO) to qualify the two structures for the National and State Registers of Historic Places. SHPO granted the buildings a Determination of Eligibility, citing them as “outstanding examples of Art Deco and WPA Moderne design,” and noting the “high degree of integrity” they retained, both inside and out.  SHPO described the unusual architectural features of the buildings, which include design references to the waterfront and maritime heritage of the Lower East Side. While such eligibility does not ensure that these buildings will be saved, it requires that serious consideration be given to possibilities for mitigation, such as raising them for adaptive re-use.

Demolition is scheduled to begin this fall. Send any letters of support for preserving these distinctive New Deal buildings to [email protected].

Deborah Wye was a long-time curator at New York’s Museum of Modern Art. Upon retirement, she turned her attention to New York City history and architecture. She is a Board member of the Lower East Side Preservation Initiative.

A New Deal Jewel in New York Awaits Revival

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Orchard Beach was New York’s most ambitious park project of the New Deal.

Orchard Beach and Pavilion, Bronx, New York
Orchard Beach was New York’s most ambitious park project of the New Deal.  Source

A record 1.7 million people flocked to Orchard Beach in the Bronx this past summer. That would have pleased former New York City Parks Commissioner Robert Moses, the visionary force behind its construction. With its man-made crescent shoreline, Orchard Beach is an engineering feat and was New York’s most ambitious park project of the New Deal. The City’s Landmark Preservation Commission goes even further, citing it as “among the most remarkable public recreational facilities ever constructed in the United States.”

Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia and Parks Commissioner Robert Moses preside at the beach’s grand opening, July 25, 1936

Opening Day, Orchard Beach
Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia and Parks Commissioner Robert Moses preside at the beach’s grand opening, July 25, 1936
Photo Credit: NYC Parks Photo Archive

Upon completion in 1929 of the widely celebrated six-mile-long Jones Beach on the south shore of Long Island, Moses sought a comparable triumph within city limits. With Long Island Sound bordering Pelham Bay Park, he devised a plan to fill a bay between the two land masses to create a new beach over a mile long. His plan went into action in 1935. A section of the beach opened in 1936, with Moses and Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia presiding; it was completed in 1937.

The city’s Landmark Preservation Commission describes Orchard Beach as “among the most remarkable public recreation facilities ever constructed in the United States.”

Orchard Beach Pavilion in 1937
The city’s Landmark Preservation Commission describes Orchard Beach as “among the most remarkable public recreation facilities ever constructed in the United States.”
Photo Credit: NYC Parks Photo Archive

Grand achievements and remarkable efficiency were hallmarks of the Moses regime, but neither would have been possible without the shared Progressive vision of Mayor LaGuardia, and the Mayor’s able maneuvering in Washington to secure New Deal funding.  President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, a New Yorker himself, was no fan of Robert Moses and even urged his firing. But FDR was charmed by LaGuardia, and noted that he found it hard to resist the feisty Mayor’s requests. New Deal accomplishments in New York in 1936 alone included not only Orchard Beach, but also Pelham Bay-Split Rock Golf Course, eleven massive municipal swimming pools, and the Triborough Bridge—all with Moses at the helm.

While Orchard Beach is enormously popular today, its dramatic centerpiece, a massive bathhouse pavilion, is fenced off and deteriorating. The design of this monumental structure, a New York City landmark, is credited to architect Aymar Embury II. Its striking style—classicism cloaked in austere modernism—echoes that found in civic buildings across the country from the period. Yet the building’s blue terra-cotta details, some with Art Deco elements, give it a distinct individuality. Even in its current disrepair, the pavilion conveys a noble grandeur, evoking a sense of stability that must have been reassuring during the Great Depression.

The Pavilion is closed pending its restoration as a recreation center.

Orchard Beach Pavilion today.
The Pavilion is closed pending its restoration as a recreation center.
Photo Credit: Deborah Wye

The New York City Parks Department is in the midst of a multi-year study to determine the structural soundness of the building and its possible future uses. Although there is no official report yet, analysis of the concrete has shown it to be stable enough for restoration. As a city property, the pavilion will probably languish through years of building regulations and shifting funding appropriations. But, hopefully, the former bathhouse, once providing changing rooms, restaurants, and shops, will one day be a fully-equipped recreation center with programs as popular year-round as Orchard Beach is every summer.

Deborah Wye was a long-time curator at New York’s Museum of Modern Art. Upon retirement, she turned her attention to New York City history and architecture. She is a Board member of the Lower East Side Preservation Initiative.