Riverside Park (Manhattan) - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Riverside Park is a scenic waterfront public park on the Upper West Side

Upper West Side

The Upper West Side is a neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan, New York City, that lies between Central Park and the Hudson River and between West 59th Street and West 125th Street...

of the borough

Borough (New York City)

New York City, one of the largest cities in the world, is composed of five boroughs. Each borough now has the same boundaries as the county it is in. County governments were dissolved when the city consolidated in 1898, along with all city, town, and village governments within each county...

of Manhattan

Manhattan

Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...

in New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

, operated and maintained by the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation

New York City Department of Parks and Recreation

The City of New York Department of Parks & Recreation is the department of government of the City of New York responsible for maintaining the city's parks system, preserving and maintaining the ecological diversity of the city's natural areas, and furnishing recreational opportunities for city's...

. The park consists of a narrow four-mile (6 km) strip of land between the Hudson River

Hudson River

The Hudson is a river that flows from north to south through eastern New York. The highest official source is at Lake Tear of the Clouds, on the slopes of Mount Marcy in the Adirondack Mountains. The river itself officially begins in Henderson Lake in Newcomb, New York...

and the gently curving rise-and-fall of Riverside Drive. When the park was first laid out, access to the river was blocked by the right-of-way of the New York Central Railroad

New York Central Railroad

The New York Central Railroad , known simply as the New York Central in its publicity, was a railroad operating in the Northeastern United States...

West Side Line

West Side Line (NYCRR)

The West Side Line, also called the West Side Freight Line, is a railroad line on the west side of the New York City borough of Manhattan. North of Penn Station, from 34th Street, the line is used by Amtrak passenger service heading north via Albany to Toronto, Montreal and Chicago...

; later it was covered over with an esplanade

Esplanade

An esplanade is a long, open, level area, usually next to a river or large body of water, where people may walk. The original meaning of esplanade was a large, open, level area outside fortress or city walls to provide clear fields of fire for the fortress' guns...

lined with honey-locusts. Riverside Park also contains part of the Manhattan Waterfront Greenway

Manhattan Waterfront Greenway

The Manhattan Waterfront Greenway is a foreshoreway for walking or cycling, long, around the island of Manhattan. The largest portions are operated by the New York City Department of Parks. It is separated from motor traffic, and many sections also separate pedestrians from cyclists...

which encircles Manhattan's waterfronts, with car-free bike routes.

Frederick Law Olmsted

The 191 acre (0.77295026 km²) of land which form the original area of the Park (from 72nd – 125th Street) were undeveloped prior to construction of the Hudson River Railroad, built in 1846 to connect New York City to Albany. The first proposal to convert the riverside precipice into a park was contained in a pamphlet written by William R. Martin, a parks commissioner, in 1865. In 1866, a bill introduced into the Legislature by commissioner Andrew Green was approved, the first segment of park was acquired through condemnation in 1872, and construction began.

The conceptual plan for a new park and road was drawn by Frederick Law Olmsted

Frederick Law Olmsted

Frederick Law Olmsted was an American journalist, social critic, public administrator, and landscape designer. He is popularly considered to be the father of American landscape architecture, although many scholars have bestowed that title upon Andrew Jackson Downing...

, designer of the nearby Central Park

Central Park

Central Park is a public park in the center of Manhattan in New York City, United States. The park initially opened in 1857, on of city-owned land. In 1858, Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux won a design competition to improve and expand the park with a plan they entitled the Greensward Plan...

. Subsequently, a series of designers set out to devise the new landscape, incorporating Olmsted’s idea of a park with a tree-lined drive curving around the valleys and rock outcroppings and overlooking the river. From 1875 to 1910, architects and horticulturalists such as Calvert Vaux

Calvert Vaux

Calvert Vaux , was an architect and landscape designer. He is best remembered as the co-designer , of New York's Central Park....

and Samuel Parsons

Samuel Parsons

Samuel H. Parsons Jr. . Parsons was a well-known American landscape architect remembered primarily for his "Beaux-Arts" designs in New York City, the development of Central Park, San Diego’s Balboa Park, and for serving as a founding member to the American Society of Landscape Architects...

laid out the stretch of park between 72nd and 125th Streets according to the English gardening ideal, creating the appearance that the Park was an extension of the Hudson River Valley. Primary construction was completed in about 1910.

Robert Moses

In the 1930s, Robert Moses

Robert Moses

Robert Moses was the "master builder" of mid-20th century New York City, Long Island, Rockland County, and Westchester County, New York. As the shaper of a modern city, he is sometimes compared to Baron Haussmann of Second Empire Paris, and is one of the most polarizing figures in the history of...

completed the "Westside Improvement Project" to transform the park, which had become a haven for squatters. Moses's project added new landfill west of the tracks, covered the New York Central rail line, and constructed the Henry Hudson Parkway

Henry Hudson Parkway

The Henry Hudson Parkway is an long parkway in New York City. The southern terminus is at West 72nd Street in Manhattan, where the parkway continues south as the West Side Highway. It is often erroneously referred to as the West Side Highway throughout its entire course in Manhattan...

. The park and the parkway were done so skillfully that the public is generally unaware that the Freedom Tunnel

Freedom Tunnel

The Freedom Tunnel is the name given to the Amtrak tunnel under Riverside Park in Manhattan, New York City. It got its name because the graffiti artist Chris "Freedom" Pape used the tunnel walls to create some of his most notable artwork...

rail tunnel now used by Amtrak

Amtrak

The National Railroad Passenger Corporation, doing business as Amtrak , is a government-owned corporation that was organized on May 1, 1971, to provide intercity passenger train service in the United States. "Amtrak" is a portmanteau of the words "America" and "track". It is headquartered at Union...

is underneath. The project, which cost more than $100 million in the 1930s, was twice as big as the Hoover Dam

Hoover Dam

Hoover Dam, once known as Boulder Dam, is a concrete arch-gravity dam in the Black Canyon of the Colorado River, on the border between the US states of Arizona and Nevada. It was constructed between 1931 and 1936 during the Great Depression and was dedicated on September 30, 1935, by President...

project.

Moses' biographer Robert Caro envisaged Moses surveying the area before his project, finding:

"a wasteland six miles (10 km) long, stretching from where he stood all the way north to 181st street...The 'park' was nothing but a vast low-lying mass of dirt and mud. Unpainted, rusting, jagged wire fences along the tracks barred the city from its waterfront...The engines that pulled trains along the tracks burned coal or oil; from their smokestacks a dense black smog rose toward the apartment houses, coating windowsills with grit...[a stench] seemed to hang over Riverside Drive endlessly after each passage of a train carrying south to the slaughterhouses in downtown Manhattan carload after carload of cattle and pigs."

Donald Trump and the Civic Coalition

In the 1980s Donald Trump

Donald Trump

Donald John Trump, Sr. is an American business magnate, television personality and author. He is the chairman and president of The Trump Organization and the founder of Trump Entertainment Resorts. Trump's extravagant lifestyle, outspoken manner and role on the NBC reality show The Apprentice have...

owned the 57 acres (230,671 m²) of land just south of Riverside Park that had been the Penn Central freight rail yard. Inspired (or goaded) by six civic groups (Municipal Art Society

Municipal Art Society

The Municipal Art Society of New York, founded in 1893, is a non-profit membership organization that fights for intelligent urban planning, design and preservation through education, dialogue and advocacy in New York City....

, Natural Resources Defense Council

Natural Resources Defense Council

The Natural Resources Defense Council is a New York City-based, non-profit, non-partisan international environmental advocacy group, with offices in Washington DC, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Beijing...

, New Yorkers for Parks, Regional Plan Association

Regional Plan Association

The Regional Plan Association is an independent, not-for-profit regional planning organization, founded in 1922, that focuses on recommendations to improve the quality of life and economic competitiveness of the 31-county New York-New Jersey-Connecticut region...

, Riverside Park Fund, and Westpride), which all opposed his massive development plan, Trump

Donald Trump

agreed in 1990 to a scaled-down plan that would also expand Riverside Park by 23 acres (93,077.8 m²). This new Riverside Park South, stretching between 72nd and 59th streets, is the central element of the Riverside South development, which even down-scaled is the biggest private real estate venture currently under construction in New York City. Portions of the former rail yard, such as the New York Central Railroad 69th Street Transfer Bridge

New York Central Railroad 69th Street Transfer Bridge

The 69th Street Transfer Bridge, part of the West Side Line of the New York Central Railroad, was a dock for car floats which allowed the transfer of railroad cars from the rail line to car floats which crossed the Hudson River to the Weehawken Yards in New Jersey...

are incorporated into the new park.

With the addition of Riverside Park South and Hudson River Park

Hudson River Park

Hudson River Park is a waterside park on the Hudson River that extends from 59th Street south to Battery Park in the New York City borough of Manhattan. Bicycle and pedestrian paths, including the Manhattan Waterfront Greenway, span the park north to south, opening up the waterfront for...

, created between Battery Park and 59th Street as part of the 1990s West Side Highway

West Side Highway

The West Side Highway is a mostly surface section of New York State Route 9A that runs from West 72nd Street along the Hudson River to the southern tip of Manhattan. It replaced the West Side Elevated Highway, built between 1929 and 1951, which was shut down in 1973 due to neglect and lack of...

replacement, a continuous waterfront right-of-way for pedestrians and bicyclists now stretches the length of Manhattan from north to south.

Boundaries

The most used sections of Riverside Park are on the tiered slopes between the Hudson and Riverside Drive from 72nd Street

72nd Street (Manhattan)

72nd Street is one of the major bi-directional crosstown streets in the New York City borough of Manhattan. Where the west end of 72nd Street curves into the south end of Riverside Drive, the memorial to Eleanor Roosevelt stands in Riverside Park. At this end of the street is the landmarked...

to 125th Street

125th Street (Manhattan)

125th Street is a two-way street that runs east-west in the New York City borough of Manhattan, considered the "Main Street" of Harlem; It is also called Martin Luther King, Jr...

. Riverside Park South extends from 72nd to 59th Street

59th Street (Manhattan)

59th Street in the New York City borough of Manhattan runs east-west, from York Avenue to the West Side Highway, with a discontinuity between Ninth Avenue/Columbus Avenue and Eighth Avenue/Central Park West for the Time Warner Center. Although it is bi-directional for most of its length, the...

on the former Penn Central yard, with an old locomotive on display. Riverside Park South leads to Hudson River Park

Hudson River Park

which goes all the way south to the tip of Manhattan. There is also a northern section of the park from 135th St. to 155th St. and adjacent to Riverbank State Park

Riverbank State Park

Riverbank State Park is a park built on the top of a sewage treatment facility on the Hudson River, in the New York City borough of Manhattan....

. Paths along the river connect the park to Hudson River Park

Hudson River Park

to the south and Fort Washington Park to the north. The portion from 181st Street to Dyckman Street, including Inspiration Point, fell into disrepair and disuse in the late 20th century, and was restored at the turn of the century.

Monuments

Notable monuments and statues in the park include the Eleanor Roosevelt

Eleanor Roosevelt

Anna Eleanor Roosevelt was the First Lady of the United States from 1933 to 1945. She supported the New Deal policies of her husband, distant cousin Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and became an advocate for civil rights. After her husband's death in 1945, Roosevelt continued to be an international...

Monument at 72nd Street (Penelope Jencks, sculptor), the Soldiers and Sailors Monument

Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument (New York)

The Soldiers' and Sailors' Memorial Monument commemorates Union Army soldiers and sailors who served in the American Civil War. It is located at 89th Street and Riverside Drive in Riverside Park in the Upper West Side of New York City. It was dedicated on Memorial Day, 1902.The white marble...

at 89th Street, the Joan of Arc

Joan of Arc

Saint Joan of Arc, nicknamed "The Maid of Orléans" , is a national heroine of France and a Roman Catholic saint. A peasant girl born in eastern France who claimed divine guidance, she led the French army to several important victories during the Hundred Years' War, which paved the way for the...

statue at 93rd Street (Anna Hyatt Huntington

Anna Hyatt Huntington

Anna Vaughn Hyatt Huntington was an American sculptor.-Life and career:Huntington was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Her father, Alpheus Hyatt, was a professor of paleontology and zoology at Harvard University and MIT, and served as a contributing factor to her early interest in animals and...

, sculptor; John V. Van Pelt, architect), and Grant's Tomb, New York's version of the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus. The numerous recreational facilities include tennis

Tennis

Tennis is a sport usually played between two players or between two teams of two players each . Each player uses a racket that is strung to strike a hollow rubber ball covered with felt over a net into the opponent's court. Tennis is an Olympic sport and is played at all levels of society at all...

, volleyball

Volleyball

Volleyball is a team sport in which two teams of six players are separated by a net. Each team tries to score points by grounding a ball on the other team's court under organized rules.The complete rules are extensive...

and basketball

Basketball

Basketball is a team sport in which two teams of five players try to score points by throwing or "shooting" a ball through the top of a basketball hoop while following a set of rules...

courts; soccer fields, and a skate park that opened in the summer of 1995 at 108th St. There is a marina at 79th Street

79th Street (Manhattan)

79th Street is a major two-way street in the Upper East Side and Upper West Side of the New York City borough of Manhattan. East 79th Street stretches from East End Avenue to Fifth Avenue on the Upper East Side, where it enters Central Park through Miners' Gate...

and also a kayak launch at 148th St. Before the park existed, Edgar Allan Poe

Edgar Allan Poe

Edgar Allan Poe was an American author, poet, editor and literary critic, considered part of the American Romantic Movement. Best known for his tales of mystery and the macabre, Poe was one of the earliest American practitioners of the short story and is considered the inventor of the detective...

liked to sit on rocky "Mount Tom" at 83rd Street.

Riverside Park almost received a children's playground designed by the great poets of Modernist style, the architect Louis Kahn

Louis Kahn

Louis Isadore Kahn was an American architect, based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. After working in various capacities for several firms in Philadelphia, he founded his own atelier in 1935...

and the sculptor/architect Isamu Noguchi

Isamu Noguchi

was a prominent Japanese American artist and landscape architect whose artistic career spanned six decades, from the 1920s onward. Known for his sculpture and public works, Noguchi also designed stage sets for various Martha Graham productions, and several mass-produced lamps and furniture pieces,...

, working in collaboration. Despite their redesigning this playground five times between 1961 and 1966, neighborhood resistance triumphed, and the project was canceled by the new administration of Mayor John Lindsay

John Lindsay

John Vliet Lindsay was an American politician, lawyer and broadcaster who was a U.S. Congressman, Mayor of New York City, candidate for U.S...

.

Riverside Park also almost received a monument to the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising

Warsaw Ghetto Uprising

The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising was the Jewish resistance that arose within the Warsaw Ghetto in German occupied Poland during World War II, and which opposed Nazi Germany's effort to transport the remaining ghetto population to Treblinka extermination camp....

. A granite plaque was set in the paving at the end of the Promenade near 84th St. on October 19, 1947. It reads:

"This is the site for the American memorial to the heroes of the Warsaw Ghetto Battle April–May 1943 and to the six million Jews of Europe martyred in the cause of human liberty."

The Amiable Child Monument

Amiable Child Monument

The Amiable Child Monument is a monument located in New York City's Riverside Park. It stands west of the southbound lanes of Riverside Drive north of 122nd Street....

on the slope north of Grant's Tomb commemorates the long-ago death of a beloved child, a small boy who died in what was then an area of country homes near New York City. One side of the monument reads: “Erected to the Memory of an Amiable Child, St. Claire Pollock, Died 15 July 1797 in the Fifth Year of His Age.” The monument is composed of a granite urn on a granite pedestal inside a wrought iron fence. The monument, originally erected by George Pollock, who was either the boy's father or his uncle, has been replaced twice due to deterioration. The monument is thought to be the only single-person private grave on city-owned land in New York City.

Recreation

Riverside Park is enjoyed by New Yorkers and tourists of all ages. A free season of events (Summer on the Hudson) takes place throughout Riverside Park between May and October and hosts dozens of fun events for all including movies, concerts, and children's shows. The season line up can be found at www.nyc.gov/parks/soh. A bicycle/skating/scootering pathway, part of the Hudson River Greenway, leads from 125th Street

125th Street (Manhattan)

125th Street is a two-way street that runs east-west in the New York City borough of Manhattan, considered the "Main Street" of Harlem; It is also called Martin Luther King, Jr...

to 59th Street

59th Street (Manhattan)

. During the spring and the summer, there is also a free kayak rental at the lower tip of the park. Kayaks may be rented only on weekends, weather-permitting. There are also softball/baseball/soccer fields, traveling rings and a skate park. Riverside Park is a getaway from distracting city life, and it is an asset for the Upper West Side of Manhattan.

Riverside Park Fund

Riverside Park is supported by a nonprofit partner organization, the Riverside Park Fund. In the late 1970s, New York City's park system was in bad shape - underfunded and plagued with crime. Out of this period, Riverside Park Fund emerged as a grassroots community organization formed to reclaim the park by establishing community gardens and improving park maintenance. Today, Riverside Park Fund has over 4,000 members and a budget of nearly $2 million, most of which is dedicated to park programs and projects, like gardens, playgrounds, sports fields, monuments and landscaping. Riverside Park Fund's volunteers dedicate over 35,000 hours of service to the park.

In popular culture

Some scenes in the 1974 cult classic film Death Wish
Death Wish
Death Wish is a 1972 novel by Brian Garfield.-Plot:Paul Benjamin is a CPA in New York and lifelong liberal. However, his staid life is overturned when his daughter, Carol, and spouse, Esther, are attacked by muggers. His wife does not survive the attack, and his traumatized daughter is left in a...

, including the infamous climatic gun battle, were filmed in Riverside Park
The "Baseball Furies," one of the more memorable street gangs from the 1979 film The Warriors hail from Riverside Park. The park itself featured in two scenes from the film. Once where it was meant to be Van Cortlandt Park
Van Cortlandt Park
Van Cortlandt Park is a park located in the Bronx in New York City. It is the fourth largest park in New York City, behind Pelham Bay Park, Flushing Meadows Park and Staten Island Greenbelt....

, another as the actual park when the Warriors are being chased by the Furies.
The promenade at 91st Street in the park is where Tom Hanks
Tom Hanks
Thomas Jeffrey "Tom" Hanks is an American actor, producer, writer, and director. Hanks worked in television and family-friendly comedies, gaining wide notice in 1988's Big, before achieving success as a dramatic actor in several notable roles, including Andrew Beckett in Philadelphia, the title...

and Meg Ryan
Meg Ryan
Margaret Mary Emily Anne Hyra , professionally known as Meg Ryan, is an American actress and producer. Raised in Bethel, Connecticut, Ryan began her acting career in 1981 in minor roles, before joining the cast of the CBS soap opera As the World Turns in 1982...

meet at the end of the 1998 movie You've Got Mail
You've Got Mail
You've Got Mail is a 1998 American romantic comedy film directed by Nora Ephron, starring Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan. It was written by Nora and Delia Ephron based on the play Parfumerie by Miklós László. The film is about two letter-writing lovers who are completely unaware that their sweetheart is in...

.
The Seinfeld
Seinfeld
Seinfeld is an American television sitcom that originally aired on NBC from July 5, 1989, to May 14, 1998, lasting nine seasons, and is now in syndication. It was created by Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld, the latter starring as a fictionalized version of himself...

episode "The Frogger
The Frogger
"The Frogger" is the 174th episode of the NBC sitcom Seinfeld. This was the 18th episode for the 9th and final season. It first aired on April 23, 1998.-Plot:...

" revolved around Jerry not wanting to go near a girlfriend's apartment near Riverside Park because of a serial killer named "The Lopper" who killed in the area.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.

Frederick Law Olmsted

Robert Moses

Donald Trump and the Civic Coalition

Boundaries

Monuments

Recreation

Riverside Park Fund

In popular culture

See also

External links