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Van Cortlandt Park

January 19, 2024

Van Cortlandt Park is a 1,146-acre (464 ha) park located in the borough of the Bronx in New York City. Owned by the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation, it is managed with assistance from the Van Cortlandt Park Alliance. The park, the city's third-largest,[a] was named for the Van Cortlandt family, which was prominent in the area during the Dutch and English colonial periods.

Van Cortlandt Park
An entrance to Van Cortlandt Park
TypeMunicipal
LocationThe Bronx, New York City, New York, US
Coordinates40°53′52″N 73°53′02″W / 40.89778°N 73.88389°W / 40.89778; -73.88389
Area1,146 acres (464 ha)[a]
Created1888
Operated byNYC Parks[b]
StatusOpen
Public transit accessNew York City Subway: Woodlawn ( train) and Van Cortlandt Park–242nd Street ( train) stations
New York City Bus: Bx9, Bx10, Bx16, Bx34 local buses, BxM3, BxM4 express buses
Bee-Line Bus System: 1, 2, 3, 4, 20, and 21

Van Cortlandt Park's sports facilities include golf courses and several miles of paths for running, as well as facilities for baseball, basketball, cricket, cross-country running, football, horseback riding, lacrosse, rugby, soccer, softball, swimming, tennis and track and field. The park also contains five major hiking trails and other walking trails. Its natural features include Tibbetts Brook; Van Cortlandt Lake, the largest freshwater lake in the Bronx; old-growth forests; and outcrops of Fordham gneiss and Inwood marble. Contained within the park is the Van Cortlandt House, the oldest known surviving house in the Bronx, and the Van Cortlandt Golf Course, the oldest public golf course in the country.

The land that Van Cortlandt Park now occupies was purchased by Jacobus Van Cortlandt from John Barrett around 1691. His son Frederick built the Van Cortlandt House on the property, but died before its completion. Later, the land was used during the Revolutionary War when the Stockbridge militia was destroyed by the Queen's Rangers. In 1888, the family property was sold to the City of New York and made into a public parkland. The Van Cortlandt House, later designated as a historic landmark, was converted into a public museum, and new paths were created across the property to make it more passable.

In the 1930s, the Robert Moses–directed construction of the Henry Hudson Parkway and Mosholu Parkway fragmented Van Cortlandt Park into its six discontinuous pieces. The last remaining freshwater marsh in New York State, Tibbetts Brook, was dredged and landscaped to accommodate construction, causing large-scale ecological disruption within the park. The 1975 New York City fiscal crisis caused much of the park to fall into disrepair. Gradual improvements began taking place from the late 1980s on including the addition of new pathways, signage, and security. In 2014, the "Van Cortlandt Park Master Plan 2034" was published.

History edit

Settlement and colonization edit

The forest in what is now Van Cortlandt Park has been around for 17,000 years, since the end of the Wisconsin glaciation.[1] The Wiechquaskeck, a Wappinger people, were among the first recorded people to inhabit in the area now referred to as Van Cortlandt Park. They settled in the area around the 14th or 15th centuries.[2] The Lenapes used the geographic features of the area to support their community; for instance, they used the Tibbetts Brook, Spuyten Duyvil Creek, or Hudson River for fishing, and flatland areas for farming. They formed a village named Keskeskick, whose name roughly translates to "sharp grass or sedge marsh" in the Unami language.[3]

The strip of land on the Hudson River's east bank, between the current-day Spuyten Duyvil Creek and Yonkers, was sold to the Dutch West India Company in the early 17th century. Adriaen van der Donck, a Dutch settler, bought the land from the company in 1646.[4][5][6] Van der Donck also paid the Indian chief Tacharew, whose tribe used to live on the land, as a friendly gesture.[5][6][7][8] He named the land "Colen Donck" and built a house upon the land.[9] The house was built between current-day Van Cortlandt Lake and Broadway.[8] It faced south, probably because this was the location of a natural marshland.[10] What is now the parade ground was used by van der Donck for farming.[11]

Van der Donck died in 1655.[5] That year the Munsee bands that lived in the lower Hudson River valley briefly occupied New Amsterdam and attacked Pavonia and Staten Island during what is known as the Peach War.[12] This forced the settlers, including van der Donck's widow, to flee to Manhattan.[5] Following the takeover of the New Netherland colony by the British in 1664, the claim to the estate was awarded to Hugh O'Neale, the new husband of van der Donck's widow.[13] Because the O'Neales lived far away from the land, the claim was awarded to O'Neale's brother-in-law and van der Donck's widow's brother, Elias Doughty, who proceeded to sell off the portions of the property.[5][14][13][15] In 1668,[13] a portion of the land was sold to William Betts, an English turner, and his son-in-law George Tippett, whom Tibbetts Brook would later be named for.[14][15][16] This property included the modern park parade grounds.[17] Next, Doughty sold a 2,000-acre (810 ha) tract of land, including the current site of the Van Cortlandt House, to Frederick Philipse, Thomas Delavall, and Thomas Lewis.[13] Philipse bought out Delavall's and Lewis's land shares, making the land part of the Philipsburg Manor, which extended from Spuyten Duyvil Creek to the Croton River in modern Westchester County.[5][14] Philipse's wife died, and he remarried Olof Stevense Van Cortlandt's daughter, herself a widow.[18] Philipse's daughter Eva later married Jacobus Van Cortlandt, who was Mrs. Philipse's brother.[5][14][18]

 
One of the park's entrances/exits at the city border

The land that Van Cortlandt Park now occupies was acquired by Van Cortlandt from Philipse in the mid-to-late 1690s.[5][14][19][20][17] In 1699, Van Cortlandt dammed Tibbetts Brook in order to power a sawmill (and later, a gristmill,[21][22]), creating Van Cortlandt Lake as a mill pond in the process.[23][24][25] In 1732, Van Cortlandt acquired an additional parcel from the Tippett family.[17][26] The estate was then passed on to Jacobus's son Frederick Van Cortlandt (1699–1749) and family in 1739; it was once a vast grain plantation.[27] In 1748, Frederick built the Van Cortlandt House on the former Tippett property, but died before its completion.[28][10][27][17] The Van Cortlandts did not primarily live in that house, instead staying in Manhattan most of the time.[10][27] A family burial ground was created in 1749,[10] later to be known as "Vault Hill."[29][30] Frederick, who was buried in Vault Hill,[29][30] had willed the massive home and surrounding lands to his son, James Van Cortlandt (1727–1787).[31]

The Van Cortlandt family land was used during the American Revolution by both the Loyalists and Patriots, owing to James's leadership role early on in the revolution. On May 30, 1775, the New York Provincial Congress placed James on a committee to create a report on whether it was feasible to build a fort near his family's house.[32][33] British General William Howe made the house his headquarters on November 13, 1776,[34] thus placing it behind British-held ground.[10][35] The Van Cortlandts wished to stay neutral in the war, however.[10] Later, the grounds were used by Patriot militia leaders Comte de Rochambeau, Marquis de Lafayette, and George Washington.[36][28] The house itself was Washington's headquarters after his troops were defeated in the 1776 Battle of Long Island.[35] That same year, Augustus Van Cortlandt hid city records under Vault Hill to protect them during the war, turning them over to the new American government after the war.[28][10][30] It was in "Indian Field," at the present-day intersection of Van Cortlandt Park East and 233rd Street, that the Stockbridge militia was destroyed by the Queen's Rangers, and 38 Indians from the militia were killed in 1778.[37][38][39][40] In 1781, Washington returned to the house to strategize with Rochambeau while their troops waited outside on what is now the Parade Ground and Vault Hill.[10] He later lit campfires outside the house to deceive the British into thinking that his troops were still on the grounds.[30] Washington used the house one final time in 1783 after the Treaty of Paris. The British had just withdrawn their troops from Manhattan, and Washington and George Clinton were getting ready to enter the island, stopping over at the house before doing so.[10][28]

In the 1830s, officials in a rapidly expanding New York City saw a need for a larger water supply. Major David Bates Douglass was appointed to perform engineering studies on the future Old Croton Aqueduct in March 1833.[41][42] Douglass made estimates for the new aqueduct in 1833–1834 and John Martineau performed a separate study in 1834. Both found the proposed route, which ran through the present-day park, to be okay.[41][42] Thus, in 1837, construction started on the Aqueduct, which ran 41 miles (66 km) from the Croton River upstate to the New York Public Library Main Branch and Bryant Park in midtown Manhattan.[43][44] The project was built by 3,000–4,000 laborers who completed the entire aqueduct in five years.[43] The aqueduct's builders constructed a gatehouse within the present-day park to provide access to the aqueduct's interior.[45][46] The old aqueduct was supplemented by the New Croton Aqueduct in 1890, which also ran through the park. The Old Croton Aqueduct was in use until 1955, though the part that ran through the park was closed down in 1897 after the new aqueduct was connected to the Jerome Park Reservoir.[45][47][48]

Planning edit

In 1876, Frederick Law Olmsted was hired to survey the Bronx and map out streets based on the local geography. Olmsted noted the natural beauty of the Van Cortlandt estate, comparing it to Central Park which he designed, and recommended the city purchase the property.[49][50] Around the same time, New York Herald editor John Mullaly pushed for the creation of parks in New York City, particularly lauding the Van Cortlandt and Pell families' properties in the western and eastern Bronx respectively. He formed the New York Park Association in November 1881.[51][52] There were objections to the system, which would apparently be too far from Manhattan, in addition to precluding development on the site.[53][54] However, newspapers and prominent lobbyists, who supported such a park system, were able to petition the bill into the New York State Senate, and later, the New York State Assembly (the legislature's lower house).[55][56] In June 1884, Governor Grover Cleveland signed the New Parks Act into law, authorizing the creation of the park system.[55][57]

Legal disputes carried on for years, exacerbated by the fact that Luther R. Marsh, vice president of the New York Park Association, owned land near Van Cortlandt Park in particular. Opponents argued that building a park system would divert funds from more important infrastructure like schools and docks; that everyone in the city, instead of just the property owners near the proposed park, was required to pay taxes to pay for the parks' construction; and that since Marsh was trying to parcel off some of his land to developers, the park's size should be reduced in order to prevent him from profiting off park usage. However, most of this opposition was directed at the construction of Pelham Bay Park, which was then in Westchester.[58] Supporters argued that the parks were for the benefit of all the city's citizens, thus justifying the citywide park tax; that the value of properties near the parks would appreciate greatly over time; that the Commission had only chosen property that could easily be converted into a park; and that Pelham Bay Park would soon be annexed to the city. Ultimately, the parks were established despite the objections of major figures like Mayors William Russell Grace and Abram Hewitt; Comptroller Edward V. Loew; and Assemblymen Henry Bergh and Theodore Roosevelt.[58]

 
Remains of the New York and Putnam Railroad, Van Cortlandt Station inside the park

In 1880 while the new park was being planned, the New York City & Northern Railroad, later the New York and Putnam Railroad, was built through the center of the park.[59] It had two stops in the Bronx: one inside the park, and another to the south at Kingsbridge. South of Kingsbridge, the railroad merged with the present-day Hudson Line of the Metro-North Railroad.[60] The tracks were used for passenger traffic until 1958, and by freight trains until 1981.[38][2] A shuttle train was operated by Yonkers Rapid Transit Railway between Kingsbridge and Yonkers. It ran off the main New York and Putnam Railroad line immediately north of the Van Cortlandt station.[45] Service began in March 1888 and ran until 1942 (see § Former railroads).[38]

Creation edit

The family property was sold to the City of New York and made into a public parkland in 1888.[10] The majority of the grain fields were converted into a sprawling lawn dubbed the "Parade Ground," while the Van Cortlandt House was converted into a public museum.[20][61] The construction of the Parade Ground required demolition of a few old buildings and cornfields.[62] The Parade Ground was immediately used by the National Guard for brigade practice, replacing the parade ground of Prospect Park.[63][64] The ground received unspecified "improvements" in 1893–1894.[65] With the city's approval, particularly overgrown areas of the property were made passable. Wide walking paths were built over original walkways, including the thin paths that led to the Van Cortlandt family cemetery, high on the nearby bluffs. "Certain lands" around the house were then filled in for the purpose of creating a "Colonial Garden,"[66] which was proposed in 1897.[67][68] During excavation of the grounds, Indian artifacts and graves were found,[69] corresponding to the old village of Keskeskick.[3]

The nine-hole Van Cortlandt Golf Course opened on July 6, 1895,[70][71] as the country's first and oldest public golf course.[72][73] The 2,561-yard (2,342 m) course comprised current holes 1, 2, 3, 6, 7, 12, 13, and 14. The first eight holes were easier and less than 200 yards (180 m) apart, but the last one had a fairway 700 yards (640 m) in length. The ninth hole, which spanned two stone walls and two small brooks, was among the country's hardest holes. Four years after the course opened, the city hired Tom Bendelow, nicknamed the "Johnny Appleseed of Golf", to expand it to 18 holes.[71][70][73][74] The course added a clubhouse in 1902,[75] which also doubled as an ice-skating house.[76][77]

At first, the park was sparsely used for sports. In 1899, there were 10, 7, and 5 permits issued for lawn tennis, baseball, and football, respectively.[78][79] The Parade Ground was converted to recreational use starting in 1902, when the National Guard added fields for polo.[80] In 1907, due to overcrowding, Dr. William Hornaday transferred 15 of the Bronx Zoo's then-rare bison to the Parade Ground,[81] where they stayed until they were shipped to prairie land in Oklahoma later that year.[82][83]

The Colonial Garden, designed by landscape architect Samuel Parsons, started construction in 1902[67][84] and opened the following June.[67][85] Besides plants, the garden had rustic wooden bridges and wooden stairs and a "handsome fountain and central court."[86] A "Shakespeare Garden" was also opened that year, with a grand stairway leading down to it.[87] The next year, park officials realized that the Colonial Garden's construction was of poor quality and hard to cultivate. The garden had to be raised 3.5 feet (1.1 m), and a nursery needed to be built to transport the plants during the garden's reconstruction. The rustic wooden bridges were to be replaced with stone bridges, while the wooden stairs were to be superseded by stone stairs.[88] Not only did many plants die during the process, but the actual rebuilding was delayed until 1911.[89] Two years later, the Parks Commissioner for the Bronx refused to allocate reconstruction funds because, he stated, the garden looked just fine. Under threat of tearing the garden down, the city had to find money to fill and drain the ground.[89][90] The rebuilding contract was awarded in 1909[91] and completed by 1911.[92]

Early years edit

Various adjustments were made over succeeding years. A network of roads through the park was built soon after, allowing the construction of picnic areas and hiking trails as well as making the forests more accessible to visitors.[93] A stone memorial was placed at Indian Field in 1906,[94][40] with a plaque misspelling the name of the Indian chief, Abraham Ninham, as "Abraham Nimham."[39][95] One particular concern was the threat of the wetlands serving as breeding grounds for malaria-borne mosquitoes,[96] which had drawn the ire of local residents and property owners as they believed the wetlands to be "unsightly and unsanitary."[97][98] The marshlands were filled in between 1906 and 1922.[10] The marsh to the southwest of the Van Cortlandt Station was converted to a lake.[99] An "outlet sewer" under Broadway was built in 1907.[97][98][100] From 1903 to 1911, NYC Parks cleaned the 13-foot-deep (4.0 m) Van Cortlandt Lake, removed the original earthen dam, and emptied the lake in order to dredge the lake bed to a lower depth. A new dam was installed to reform the lake.[101][93][102] The former marshland was filled in.[103][104]

During a 1910s excavation for a sewer pipe, stones were unearthed that were suspected to be from the old van der Donck estate.[10][105][35] During World War I, the Parade Ground was used to train soldiers.[106][2] Eight tennis courts opened in 1914 with admission being $1 per person,[79][107] and owing to the Van Cortlandt Golf Course's immense popularity, the Mosholu Links also opened that year.[75][107][74] By 1917, the Parade Ground contained 10 out of the park's baseball diamonds. The park's recreational facilities were quite popular, with more than 10,000 people using them on a busy day.[108][109] However, during and following World War I, the Parade Ground was used for war training. Until 1926, the baseball fields did not contain backstops, and had to be vacated by July 4 of every year, so the National Guard could use the field.[108][110]

 
Van Cortlandt Park, Oscar Florianus Bluemner, 1936

The 6.2-mile (10.0 km) cross-country running course was inaugurated in 1914.[111] The track started out as a flat path, became hilly, turned onto a "little spell of road work," went into the forest, and crossed a water before turning back. A year later, it hosted the Metropolitan Association of the Amateur Athletic Union's Junior and Senior Cross Country championships.[111][112] A modified 3.1-mile (5.0 km) cross-country course opened on November 5, 1921, with runners simply changing direction at the city border. The new course, which started at the original polo fields, did not conflict with either of the golf courses.[113]

In 1922, there was a proposal to acquire land for the future Saw Mill River Parkway, which would connect the park to 424 acres (172 ha) of open space in Westchester when completed.[114] Through the 1930s, the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation kept adding new recreational facilities in the park.[69] The Colonial and Shakespeare Gardens had a combined 250,000 flowers by 1931, but both were demolished by the end of the decade due to bad drainage.[87]

In 1934, Robert Moses became the New York City Parks Commissioner,[115] and during his 16-year tenure as commissioner, altered almost every aspect of the park.[116] His job partially entailed balancing the needs of area residents, whose numbers had grown in the past decade, with transit users who traveled to the park from the north and south.[117] Moses's development plans in the 1930s called for the construction of the Henry Hudson Parkway and Mosholu Parkway to bisect Van Cortlandt Park and meet at a trumpet interchange about half a mile north of the center, merging into the Saw Mill River Parkway.[118] Due to objections over the construction of roads inside the park, the width of the parkways' lanes was reduced.[119] Tibbetts Brook was dredged and landscaped in 1938 to accommodate construction.[120] Such construction continued until 1955, during which the Major Deegan Expressway (current Interstate 87) was also built, bisecting the Mosholu Parkway.[119] This conflicted with Moses's plans for the park as a "rural oasis",[121] as highway construction ultimately separated the park into six pieces[120] and demolished most of the remaining marsh in the park.[122] This construction also induced siltation of the brook, leading to further creation of marshes.[120][123][121]

Moses also made improvements to the park itself, building new walkways, paving dirt roads, creating playgrounds, and installing lights.[119] Baseball, soccer, and cricket fields were added in 1938.[106] The Van Cortlandt Stadium was added in 1939 on the site of a former swamp,[87][124] and a pool followed in 1970.[87] Moses also landscaped the areas near the Woodlawn and 242nd Street subway stations to attract park visitors from other neighborhoods.[125] During his tenure as Parks Commissioner, Moses took aggressive approach to preserving the park's quality.[126] For instance, six mothers were issued court summonses in 1942 after letting their children dig in the park,[127] and two airplane pilots were fined in 1947 for unauthorized airplane landings.[128]

Around 1939, the old aqueduct, which was now a popular hiking trail, started becoming a popular route with cyclists. Soon after, there was a proposal to redevelop the trail as a bike path.[129] This proposal never came to fruition, although in the mid-1970s, the city built a separate bike path along Mosholu Parkway, the Bronx River Parkway, and Pelham Parkway between Jerome Avenue and Pelham Bay Park.[130]

Decline edit

By the 1960s, large portions of the park, such as Tibbetts Brook, were being polluted by human activity; in addition, the brook now flowed into the Broadway sewer at the south end of Van Cortlandt Lake.[120][123] Pollution from upstream and the highways, and spillover of chemicals used in the golf course, killed fish in the lake.[131][59][15] This problem was first noticed in May 1961 when thousands of dead bass, pickerel, catfish, perch, and carp floated up at the edge of the lake.[123][132] The mass-death of fish was blamed on siltation,[133] Three years later, fish were still being killed by siltation.[134] City investigators took water samples from the lake and found that they contained large amounts of weeds and sediment.[135] About 22,000 square feet (2,000 m2) of the lake's surface area was being lost to sedimentation every year.[136] In addition, an algal bloom caused the lake to be in a low-oxygen condition, endangering plants and animals in and around the lake.[135] "Unpleasant odors" in the summer also reduced recreational opportunities on the lake, and these conditions combined made it virtually impossible to come into contact with the lake's water without getting sick.[136][137] By 1976, there was a moratorium on all boating activities on the lake.[123][138]

The Van Cortlandt Golf Course was used as a ski slope during the winters starting in 1961, and up to 3,000 visitors would use the slopes each weekend.[139] By 1964, with the use of artificial snow, it was also possible to ski during warmer days.[140] The seasonal ski slope was closed in the late 1960s when the city decided to allow golfers to use the Van Cortlandt Course during winters.[139] Also in the late 1960s, the city decided to build a series of public pools on the site of the Colonial Garden, consisting of a diving, a swimming, and a wading pool. Construction on the $1.5 million pools started in early 1969 and was completed by 1970.[141] Because of the swampy nature of the ground underneath it, the pools soon began to crackle and set. By 1979, the locker rooms were heavily vandalized and the diving pool had been closed.[142]

 
Rocky terrain in the park

The city's fiscal crisis in the 1970s caused the rest of the park to fall into disrepair.[69][143] A dearth of funds exacerbated the pollution of the park.[69] Hands-on education programs at the park were reduced to passive observations of flora and fauna.[136][15] Elsewhere in the park, excessive foot traffic was eroding the soil in the forests. The stock of younger, replacement trees in the old-growth forest had relatively little diversity compared to other natural forests.[120]

In 1979, New York City Councilwoman June Eisland released a report on Van Cortlandt Park. The report noted that pollutants from the Major Deegan Expressway were entering Van Cortlandt Lake, and that the park ecosystem was also being harmed by inadequate drainage, soil sterilants that were used on the Putnam Branch tracks, and a fungicide with 8.5% cadmium content that was being sprayed on the golf course.[138][144] A year later, a private landscaping firm estimated that it would cost $4–7 million to restore the Van Cortlandt Lake. By this point, the lake was so dirty that a small boat could not float on it, even though the lake was 15 feet (4.6 m) deep.[145] Catfish were the only fish that could survive in the lake water.[146] The city of Yonkers eventually attributed the cause of the Van Cortlandt Lake's pollution to four storm sewers that were found to be illegally connected to Tibbetts Brook upstream.[147][148]

The utter disrepair in the park prompted some informal rules at the park's golf courses. For instance, the Los Angeles Times noted that "a player was allowed to drop his ball a club length away if it rolled up against an abandoned auto, or, in one case, a boat. To thwart robbers, besieged golfers quit playing in traditional foursomes and instead ventured forth in football-team-sized units. Some players added an extra club—a night stick—or tucked tear gas spray into their golf bags."[149] Years later, one writer recalled that dozens of the course's trees died, and "flagsticks were reduced to broken bamboo poles stuck into the ground."[150] Weeds overgrew the course, and golfers would wear long-sleeved shirts to ward off against the city's insufficient mosquito repellents. Homeless squatters moved into the park, while courses fell into disrepair, replaced by dirt tracks and "huts and forts" built by neighborhood kids.[149] In 1985, the city licensed control of the courses to Los Angeles-based American Golf Corporation for 60 years, leading to their restoration.[149]

Other parts of the park also fell into disrepair, such as Vault Hill, whose headstones and crypts were vandalized in the 1960s.[29][30] As early as 1962, a New York Times reader wrote of vandalism on Vault Hill.[151][152] A lack of annual maintenance of the park's jogging tracks and bridle paths had caused them to erode and become overgrown at some places. In 1978–1979, NYC Parks performed a wholesale renovation of the park's eroded and dilapidated bridle paths and jogging tracks.[153] The Parade Ground remained popular, and the New York Philharmonic and Metropolitan Opera performed in the field during the summer.[154] However, it too had deteriorated because of intensive use: the grounds' topsoil had eroded away and the sidewalks started to buckle.[155] In 1978, the Perrier Company donated a fitness trail consisting of 12 exercise machines to the park; there were originally supposed to be 18 machines, but the extra six machines were deemed unnecessary.[156] Two shuffleboard courts were also installed in the Parade Grounds the same year, but went unused because of a lack of playing equipment.[157]

Improvements edit

In response to studies and accounts that showed the bad condition of the lake, the state restored the fish population of the lake in 1978.[101][158][131] In 1977, the Bronx Borough Board created a special committee to oversee and develop plans for improving Van Cortlandt Park.[159][160] The Friends of Van Cortlandt Park soon came up with its own suggestions to improve the park.[161] After the parcourse for the parade grounds was approved in 1978, the New York City Department of Parks promised to cooperate on the Van Cortlandt Park improvement plans.[156] The 1979 Eisland plan also detailed suggestions for park improvements.[138] This culminated in the 1980 appointment of a park coordinator who would start devising details of a "master plan" for the park.[162]

In 1985, a study recommended ecological restoration of the lake and forest, which had been overtaken by invasive species introduced during highway construction.[120][163] Since then, there have been seven plans for restoring natural elements of the park, as well as three plans for park restoration.[164] Gradual improvements began taking place in the late 1980s, including the addition of new pathways, signage, and security, as well as the restoration of playgrounds and other recreational facilities.[165] In January 1988, NYC Parks conducted a study to determine the specific elements of the park that needed restoration.[166] Highway structures were also reconfigured to clean runoff from these structures.[167] An excavation in the 1990s yielded over 2,500 artifacts.[168] A set of tennis courts were proposed within the park east of the Van Cortlandt House in the 1990s; despite concerns from preservationists,[169][170] though the courts were approved.[171]

 
The Sachkerah Woods Playground, located at Van Cortlandt Park's southeast corner

The city built the Croton Water Filtration Plant, a drinking water treatment facility, under the park's Mosholu Golf Course. Plant operations began in 2015. The plant was needed in order to filter contaminants from urban runoff pollution in the Croton River watershed and protect the public from Giardia and Cryptosporidium, microorganisms which can cause serious health problems.[172]

The Croton plant was built after a lawsuit was filed in 1997 against the city by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the U.S. Department of Justice and the State of New York.[173] The city settled the suit and a consent decree was issued with the condition that the city would build the plant by 2006.[174] The project experienced delays and ballooning costs due to objections from the local community, which required the city to propose alternate sites for the plant.[175][176] The plant was built 160 feet (49 m) below the Mosholu Golf Course, at a cost of $3.2 billion.[172]

To lessen the disruption caused by the plant's construction, in 2010 the city used mitigation funds from the construction budget to restore the Van Cortlandt Park Parade Ground.[164][177] The Sachkerah Woods Playground, located at the park's southeast corner near the Mosholu Golf Course, was also built using Croton mitigation funds.[178]

As part of the "Van Cortlandt Park Master Plan 2034", critical ecological elements of the park, such as the forest, the rural landscape, and Tibbetts Brook, would be restored, and the brook would be diverted.[179] As of March 2014 when the report was written, the lack of natural drainage points within Van Cortlandt Park led to the flooding of recreational areas within the park during heavy rains.[180] The park's paths would also be restored with the addition of three new pedestrian bridges; a playground; four activity centers, of which two would be outdoors and two would be indoors; a skate park; an athletic field; and three basketball courts built within the park. "Comfort stations" and food concessions would also be added.[179] The Van Cortlandt Golf Course was renovated in 2016.[181] The skate park, new playground, and path improvements were completed in 2020.[182] NYC Parks started renovating the Woodlawn Playground in 2021 for $1 million.[183] One of the pedestrian bridges, which would have crossed the Major Deegan Expressway, was postponed in 2020 after its cost had increased to $23 million; the bridge was canceled in 2023.[184]

Geography edit

At 1,146 acres (464 ha), Van Cortlandt Park is the third-largest park in New York City,[a] behind the Staten Island Greenbelt (1,778 acres (720 ha)) and Pelham Bay Park (2,772 acres (1,122 ha)).[187][186][188] It has numerous attractions and features that are both recreational and educational.[189]

Geology edit

The different parts of Van Cortlandt Park have a varied geology. The Northwest Woods and Old Croton Aqueduct Trailway have a steep terrain dotted with Fordham gneiss, a metamorphic rock that is very hard to weather. The Tibbetts Brook valley is set in Inwood marble, which weathers more easily. The east side of the park near Indian Field contains Yonkers granite, an igneous rock that mixed with Fordham gneiss as a hot magma before later cooling.[190][191]

Watercourses edit

Van Cortlandt Park contains the Bronx's largest freshwater lake, the eponymous Van Cortlandt Lake.[189] The lake is 4 to 8 feet (1.2 to 2.4 m) deep at various times of year, and has an area of 18 acres (7.3 ha).[192] The lake is used for recreational fishing,[193] as it includes species such as largemouth bass, black crappie, brown bullhead, bluegill, pumpkinseed, golden shiner, common carp, white sucker, and yellow perch.[192][194] It is fed by Tibbetts Brook, a stream originating in Yonkers, which runs through a series of culverts before draining into the south edge of the lake at approximately West 242nd Street.[23][131][195] There are efforts to daylight this south end into the former New York and Putnam Railroad right-of-way that runs through the park[180][196] as part of the park's faster plan.[197]

There is no surviving documentation for the creation of Van Cortlandt Lake.[21] In 1699, Jacobus Van Cortlandt dammed Tibbetts Brook to power a sawmill, creating a mill pond at the site where the lake is.[23][24][25] Later, he also added a gristmill.[21][22] The sawmill was relocated around 1823 and stayed in operation until 1889.[21][198] The gristmill was destroyed by lightning in 1901.[199]

 
Van Cortlandt Lake from the western shore

By the time the park was created, Van Cortlandt Lake needed to be cleaned, as cesspools in Yonkers had leaked sewage into Tibbetts Brook, which fed into the lake.[93][200] A 1903 annual report from the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation mentioned that the lake had probably not been cleaned since the mid-18th century, and now contained a layer of "refuse and vegetation on top, and an ooze two to three feet deep on the bottom," with qualities more like a "semi-bog."[201][86] Cleaning of the lake started in 1903. The lake's original earthen dam was removed, the lake was emptied, and 30,000 cubic yards (23,000 m3) of deposits were dredged from the lake bed.[202][201] A new 2,270-foot (690 m) retaining wall was then erected along the lake's eastern shore, and a new dam was installed to reform the lake and to allow future cleaning of the lake without having to dredge it.[201] After the opening of an overflow drain in 1911–1912, which connected to the sewer under Broadway completed in 1907,[92][203] Tibbetts Brook was directed into the new sewer,[70][201] The construction of the Van Cortlandt Golf Course compounded the lake's dirty condition, and by 1912, the lake and brook contained significant sedimentation.[201]

Nearby residents also disliked the wetlands near the lake, as they could be used to breed malaria-borne mosquitoes,[96] and were thus seen as "unsightly and unsanitary."[97] In 1896, they proposed to fill the wetlands in,[204] and the infill proposal was funded by the New York City Board of Estimate in 1899.[205] Subsequently, the Parks Department proposed to dredge the swamp and create a lake in its stead,[206] but despite this plan receiving $70,000 in funding in 1906, it was deemed "not feasible" to drain the swamp directly into the Broadway sewer.[207][96] Another plan to remove the swamps in the park's southwest was approved in 1904. The plan was to build an athletic field in the southwest swamp's place,[208] but all swamp-infill proposals for this sector were rejected in 1917.[209] By 1922, there were 23 acres (9.3 ha) of swampland left in the park, and the Parks Department hoped to convert parts of it for some athletic purpose, but this required the New York Central Railroad to raise one of its bridges first so the swampland could be accessed.[210] However, there are no records of that bridge being raised or of the swamp being converted.[96]

In its early years, the lake was used for boating, canoeing, curling, and ice skating. By 1899, the lake was used by up to 3,000 skaters on weekdays and 10,000 on weekends.[211] The ice-skating house, shared with the golf course, was added in 1902.[77] By 1935, the lake was used by approximately 20,000 skaters daily.[212]

 
Panorama of Van Cortlandt Lake from the east shore

Wildlife edit

There are several old-growth forests with tree species and genera such as black oak, hickory, beech, cherry birch, sweetgum, red maple, and tuliptree.[2][213] The forests also contain wild turkeys, red-tailed hawks, great horned owls, bats, Eastern chipmunks, Eastern gray squirrels, groundhogs, gypsy moths, Eastern cottontail rabbits, striped skunks, North American raccoons, Virginia opossums, white-tailed deer and Eastern coyotes. In addition, over 130 species of butterflies can be found in the park.[2][213] In 1937, it was noted that the marshlands had fauna such as red-winged blackbirds, yellowthroats, green bottle flies, beetles, dragonflies, tadpoles, herons, kingfishers, and ospreys. Its flora included cattail, skunk cabbage, and moss.[214] Its avian population during the winters has exceeded that of either Central or Prospect Parks; a total of 301 bird species have been seen in the park since 1875, when records were first kept.[215] Amphibians present include American bullfrogs, red-backed salamanders, and spring peepers. Also present in and around the park's waterways and wetlands are common snapping turtles and Eastern painted turtles, as well as red-eared sliders that were introduced to the region.[216]

Landmarks and structures edit

Trails edit

 
Putnam Trail entrance, looking south from the city line.

There are five major hiking trails in the park.[217][218] The Putnam Trail (1.5 miles (2.4 km), easy),[217] runs north through the woods to the east of this lawn and west of Van Cortlandt Lake, through the golf course and along Tibbetts Brook and the former New York and Putnam Railroad line into Yonkers, where it connects to Westchester County's paved South County Trailway.[219] Previously unpaved, the Putnam Trail underwent a reconstruction project starting in August 2019 and was reopened in October 2020 as a paved pedestrian and bicycle path.[220]

The rails themselves were overrun with weeds, but they were no longer usable by trains.[221] The remains of the former Van Cortlandt Park station can be seen along the trail.[2] As part of the park's 2034 master plan, NYC Parks undertook a project to pave the entirety of the trail through Van Cortlandt Park as well as a short extension to the south, making it usable for both pedestrians and bicyclists.[222] A construction contract for the paving project was awarded in October 2018 to Grace Industries, and it was completed in October 2020.[223][224]

The Old Croton Aqueduct Trailway (1.1 miles (1.8 km), easy/moderate),[217] was created in 1968 when the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation had bought a 26.2-mile (42.2 km) stretch of the Old Croton Aqueduct, for use as a walking trail.[43][48] It starts in Van Cortlandt Park as a grass-and-dirt trail[48] and runs north along the route of the old aqueduct.[43][44] The trail features vestiges of an old, disused brick tunnel that brought water to Manhattan, as well as a gatehouse for the aqueduct.[221] Within the park, the Old Croton Aqueduct trail borders Mosholu Golf Center and Driving Range, as well as the Allen Shandler Recreation Area.[225] Its southern end is cut off by the Major Deegan Expressway in the southwestern end of the park.[226] As part of the Croton Water Filtration Plant project, the New York City Department of Environmental Protection was given $200 million to mitigate the effects of constructing the plant. A feasibility study in 2009 found that a bridge near the location of 233rd Street was the most feasible, and would connect the two sections of the trail.[227] This bridge was deferred over lack of funding in 2014[226] before planning resumed in 2015.[228][229]

 
The park's own little stonehenge, a former structural stone testing site for the construction of Grand Central Terminal

The John Kieran Nature Trail (1.25 miles (2.01 km), easy),[217] which connects to the Putnam Trail, opened in 1987 and is named after local writer and naturalist John Kieran.[230] The path features 13 stone pillars, each made of a different variety of stone, that were tested for the facade of Grand Central Terminal during the terminal's construction.[2][231] The variety eventually chosen was Indiana limestone[231] because it was cheap.[2] The trail hugs the edge of the Van Cortlandt Lake and Tibbetts Brook marsh.[225]

The John Muir Trail (1.5 miles (2.4 km), moderate) is the park's only east–west trail[217] that connects the three northern forested areas.[225] It was established in 1997.[232] Various species of trees and flowering plants can be seen along the trail, such as northern red oak, sweetgum, and tulips.[233] There is a large, steep hill in the center of the trail.[232]

The Cass Gallagher Nature Trail (1.4 miles (2.3 km), moderate/difficult) is the hardest trail in the park.[217] It was given its current name in 1984, named after a local resident who was a fervent advocate of preserving the park's environment.[234] Shaped as a loop, it extends through the rocky forests of the park's northwestern portion.[221] It was once a "self-guided interpretive nature trail" where hikers could observe natural elements along the trail.[225] Along this trail, there is a "thick undergrowth" beneath a "canopy" of deciduous trees that date back centuries. However, logging and forest fires have killed some of these trees. Pioneer species, which inhabit the plots of the forest destroyed by logging and fire, include sumac and black locusts.[221] There is also an outcropping of Fordham gneiss, the last vestige of a giant mountain chain that used to run through this area until the Wisconsin glaciation.[221] The exposed rocks also contain mica and quartz.[2] There have been many sightings of bird species along this trail, such as those of woodpeckers, owls, quail and pheasants.[221] This trail repeatedly crosses a 3-mile (4.8 km) cross-country trail.[225]

A bikeway runs east from the golf course's clubhouse to connect to the Mosholu Parkway bike path.[235] Some trail sections are a part of the East Coast Greenway, a 3,000-mile-long (4,800 km) trail system connecting Maine to Florida.[236]

Landmarks edit

 
The historic Van Cortlandt House, now a museum

The Van Cortlandt House in the southern part of Van Cortlandt Park was erected by Frederick Van Cortlandt in 1748.[237] This house still stands, making it the oldest known surviving house in the Bronx.[238][237] The estate the house sits on was of major importance during the American Revolution. Troops from both the British and Colonial American armies rested in this house during the time of war.[40] The Van Cortlandt family owned the property until they decided to sell both the house and land to the City of New York in 1886.[237] Ten years later, the house was restored as a museum displaying the culture and lifestyle of 18th-century families.[239] It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1967 and became a National Historic Landmark in 1976.[240][241]

Near the museum is a 15-mile marker for the old Albany Post Road, which was relocated to its current position in 1934 after the road was rerouted.[242] In 1938, officials at San Francisco's Golden Gate International Exposition gave a 4.5-foot (1.4 m) walnut tree to the City of New York, who then planted the tree outside the museum in the place of another tree that had died.[243]

Vault Hill, the family burial ground, still exists. Located 169 feet (52 m) above sea level, it is northeast of the Parade Ground and west of Tibbetts Brook and the Van Cortlandt Golf Course.[29] There may have been an unmarked graveyard for Native Americans and African slaves, which was likely destroyed when the New York and Putnam Railroad line was built. Another graveyard exists for the Berrian family, who lived nearby during the 18th century and were related by marriage to the Tippetts.[244]

The Memorial Grove honors Bronxites who served in World War II and the Korean War. It is located by the road to the Van Cortlandt House, close to Broadway.[245][246] Created in 1949, the grove contained a tree and a bronze plaque for each of the 39 soldiers who were memorialized.[106][246][247] By the time the grove was renovated in 2011,[248] there were only 18 plaques left.[247] Restoration was completed in 2012.[249]

Other structures edit

Van Cortlandt Park contains Citywide Nursery, one of three greenhouses operated by NYC Parks. It grows about 200,000 plants each year.[250]

Recreation edit

The Parade Ground is north of the museum, in the western part of the park.[251] When the park was originally built, there was a law dictating that the Parade Ground should be vacated for National Guard use if required.[252][253] The field was originally used by the National Guard for brigade practice,[63][64] but this use was decommissioned by the 1930s, and the land near Broadway was converted to 17 multipurpose baseball, football or soccer fields and two additional fields solely for cricket.[254] Today, it contains 10[251] of the borough's 19 total cricket fields[255] and a Gaelic football field.[251][221] The cricket fields were renovated from 2010 to 2013 for $13 million. During the renovation, the fields were relocated such that they did not overlap with each other or with the soccer and baseball fields.[255] The Parade Ground also has other areas dedicated to various sports, including six baseball fields, four football fields, five soccer fields, and a 1.5-mile (2.4 km) course for cross-country running.[251][256] The Rolling Stones commenced their Licks Tour here in 2002, getting into a blimp from the Parade Ground.[257]

The park is home to a free public pool, along with numerous playgrounds for children and areas dedicated for barbecuing.[258] The pool was added in 1970,[61][87][120] though proposals for such a pool date back to 1907.[97][259] It was designed by Heery & Heery architects and cost $1.6 million.[260] The pool contains a 17,280-US-gallon (65,400 L; 14,390 imp gal) wading pool, a diving pool, and a 380,000-US-gallon (1,400,000 L; 320,000 imp gal) Olympic-sized pool.[260][261]

The Van Cortlandt Stadium was built by Parks Commissioner Moses and Mayor Fiorello H. La Guardia during the Great Depression, and was funded by Works Progress Administration. It is located north of Van Cortlandt Park South near Broadway in the park's southwest corner.[254][262] The stadium opened on September 22, 1939, to a day of track events and a football game between Manhattan College and Fordham University.[87][124] It had 18 tennis courts, five basketball courts, six handball courts, three baseball fields, three football fields (including one in the stadium itself), three horseshoe pitching fields, a running track, and a bowling green, as well as water fountains and lockers.[263] In 1994, Mayor Giuliani funded a $415,000 project for concrete repairs to the stadium,[264] and in 1998, the 0.25-mile (0.40 km) running track was rebuilt for nearly a million dollars.[264] The park is the home of the Manhattan College Jaspers college baseball team.[265] In 2015, the Jaspers moved to Dutchess Stadium in Fishkill, New York,[266] but in 2021, the Jaspers moved back to Van Cortlandt Park.[267]

 
Riverdale Stables

Riverdale Stables, located on 21 acres (8.5 ha) of the park, offers horseback riding.[268][269][270] In 1934, there were two stables: a larger one east of the Putnam Division near Van Cortlandt Avenue and 242nd Street, and a smaller one to the Van Cortlandt Course clubhouse's east.[271]

The Indian Field has baseball and softball fields, a sandbox, picnic tables, tennis courts, horseshoes courts, and shuffleboard courts.[272] The Allen Shandler Recreation Area, renamed from the Holly Park Recreation Area in 1966 after a neighborhood boy who was diagnosed with a brain tumor in the 1960s and died at age 15, has baseball fields, benches, picnic tables, barbecue grills, and a comfort station.[273] Other activities available at the park include basketball, ice skating, and fishing.[256]

Golf edit

 
The lake and golf course at sunset; the former railroad bridge is at far left

The Van Cortlandt Golf Course, which opened on July 6, 1895, with nine holes,[70][73] is located centrally on the park grounds.[189][73] Within a year, the course became very crowded and disorganized, with crowds behaving poorly.[73] Rules were set in 1896, with golfers paying caddies 15 cents per round or 25 cents per two rounds. Only caddies with badges could be hired, and bicycles, baby strollers, horse-riding, and horse-drawn carriages were banned from the course.[274]

The course was upgraded to 18 holes in 1899,[73][70][71] and the grounds gained a new clubhouse by 1902.[75] The new Van Cortlandt Golf Course was supposed to be "experimental," and if the course was successful, similar courses would be laid around the country.[275] Other American cities were interested in building such courses.[276] The 1899 Bendelow reconstruction had rebuilt the course so that it now spanned 120 acres (49 ha), compared to the 55 acres (22 ha) of the previous course. The new course was now 6,060 yards (5,540 m) long, or about 3.44 miles (5.54 km).[277] NYC Parks reconfigured the course again the following year so that "congestion would be prevented and accidents avoided." Boulders were relocated, greens were enlarged, and hazards were built in order to space out the holes.[278] A clubhouse was added two years later.[75] Plans to extend the clubhouse were rejected in 1917.[279]

On July 13, 1905, Isaac Mackie won an Open Tournament at the Van Cortlandt Park course, shooting 152 and holding off joint second-place finishers Willie Anderson and Bernard Nicholls who finished at 157. It was the first ever professional tournament held on a public golf course in the United States.[280]

In 1914, a second golf course, the Mosholu Golf Course, opened adjacent to the existing Van Cortlandt Park course.[70] It is located at the southeast end of the park.[281] By the 1930s, both courses were being intensively used, with restaurants located near both clubhouses.[254] Around this time, six holes of the Van Cortlandt course were rebuilt as part of the Henry Hudson Parkway's construction.[282] Due to the Major Deegan Expressway's construction in 1949, there were plans to fill in 7 acres (2.8 ha) of the nearby marshlands so new holes could be built. A third of the way into the filling-in project, conservationists and residents called for the rest of the marsh to be preserved.[283] Two greens were eventually placed on the filled-in marshland.[284]

In 2002, a First Tee course, for young golfers, opened at the Mosholu course.[285] The Van Cortlandt Golf Course and its attached clubhouse were renovated from 2007 to 2014 for $5 million. Prior to the renovation, there was poor management, dirty grounds, and "a proliferation of prostitutes and drug dealers operating much too close for comfort plagued the grounds."[286] The renovation overhauled the course with such improvements as seven new greens and a new drainage system. The clubhouse received an infusion of historic golf artifacts from NYC Parks, including "vintage photographs" and an exhibit about the history of the golf ball.[286]

Running edit

Van Cortlandt Park is a popular site for cross-country running, owing to its miles of cinder trails and hills as well as its steep terrain. One legend has it that a cross-country coach thought that Van Cortlandt Park's tracks were too hard and instead went to the New Jersey Meadowlands to train.[257] Its courses are some of the most utilized cross-country courses in the United States.[257]

 
View of the Parade Ground from the starting line of the cross-country course

Around the Parade Ground, known to runners as "the flats," there is a track that circles for 1.5 miles (2.4 km).[287] Another 1.25-mile (2.01 km) rubber trail and the 3.1-mile (5.0 km) cross-country trail supplement each other between 241st Street and the city border.[288] Runners on the cross-country course typically run 6.2 miles (10.0 km).[38] They start at the Parade Ground and passing through "the cowpath," "the runners' bridge," Cemetery Hill, and "the back hills,"[257] using the back hills to turn back at the city border.[38] This trail, built in 1913 out of parts of existing trails,[289] was renovated in 1997 for $2 million, receiving a new layer of asphalt and stone to cover a tangle of "muddy ruts and jutting roots and rocks" that were breaking runners' ankles.[257][289] However, by 2013, the trail was starting to show signs of deterioration.[257]

The park is used for the Northeast regional championships of the Foot Locker Cross-Country Championships.[290] The cross-country trail is used for the Manhattan College Invitational, one of the largest high school cross-country meets in the nation.[257] In 2006, the USA Cross-Country Championships were held at Van Cortlandt and organized by USATF and New York Road Runners.[291]

The tracks are used not only by local high schools,[289] but also for many college races.[292] It is the home course for Fordham University; Iona College; New York University; and Manhattan College, located across the street. The college course is five miles (8.0 km) long, crossing the Henry Hudson Parkway at one point.[293] This course was renovated in 1997 for almost $1 million.[257] The 1968 and 1969 NCAA Men's Division I Cross Country Championship was hosted by Manhattan College at the park. The events were attended by about 10,000 people, and the championship race was 6 miles (9.7 km) long. In addition, Van Cortlandt is the venue for the annual IC4A or Intercollegiate Association of Amateur Athletes of America (ICAAAA) cross country championships.[292]

City's only Canadian football game edit

On December 11, 1909, the Hamilton Tigers and the Ottawa Rough Riders (later of the Canadian Football League), played an exhibition game at Van Cortlandt Park. Sponsored by the New York Herald, the game garnered between 5,000[294] and 30,000[295] spectators as Hamilton defeated Ottawa, 11–6.[294] The Canadian Football League's influence in the U.S. did not change after the match, and no subsequent exhibition games were played in the city. However, it was notable for being the first elite Canadian football game to be played in the U.S.[296]

Management edit

Before 1992, there was no private maintenance of the park. The earliest efforts for such a thing date to 1983, when an administrator was appointed to oversee both Van Cortlandt and Pelham Bay Parks.[297][298]

Though NYC Parks owns and operates the park, until 2019 maintenance was handled by two separate nonprofit organizations. Van Cortlandt Park Conservancy, a private nonprofit organization founded in 2009, managed educational and cultural programs, and maintains the recreational areas.[299] The Friends of Van Cortlandt Park, an independent nonprofit established in 1992,[300] provided educational programs and assists in the upkeep of the park's natural areas.[301] However, the two organizations have not had the same amount of funding as similar private organizations who manage parks in wealthier areas of the city. In 2013, Friends of Van Cortlandt Park only raised $416,612—as opposed to the Central Park Conservancy, which in 2016 had an $81 million endowment to maintain Central Park, or the Four Freedoms Parks Conservancy, which raised $8 million in 2011 alone for the construction of the Four Freedoms Park.[297] In 2019, it was announced that the two organizations would merge that June. The combined organization, the Van Cortlandt Park Alliance, would continue the programming and activities offered by the two organizations.[302]

Transportation edit

Roads edit

 
Map

Early in the park's history, there were calls for a direct route between Woodlawn and Riverdale. Property owners in Woodlawn were calling for such a route by 1893.[303] A preliminary plan for the road was submitted to NYC Parks in 1894.[304] The Woodland Path, built in the late 1890s, was linked in 1902 to a new 2,100-foot (640 m) path on the Van Cortlandt Golf Course's eastern perimeter that stretched east to Jerome Avenue.[305] Another road was built in 1902, extending 5,960 feet (1,820 m) north from West Gun Hill Road to the city line on the park's north side (later Mosholu Avenue; now Mosholu Parkway).[305] It was completed and planted with trees in 1905.[306] A third, 1,800-foot-long (550 m) road linked Jerome Avenue and East 237th Street to give Woodlawn residents direct access to Jerome Avenue Line streetcars.[305] There were also preparations for a fourth road, which would run north from Mosholu Avenue and then fork into two roads before entering Yonkers.[307] This fourth road, a "driveway" called Rockwood Drive that ran from Mosholu Avenue to the city line at Yonkers, was completed in 1903. An additional spur from Rockwood Drive diverged from the intersection with Mosholu Avenue, terminating at the train station.[308] A pedestrian passage from Jerome Avenue to Gun Hill Road, opened in 1905, also allowed more direct access into the park from Jerome Avenue.[306] These roads allowed park visitors to access more of the park via automobile, but also had the effect of separating existing amenities, such as the golf course and Parade Ground, from each other.[93]

By 1906, increased automotive traffic necessitated the widening of Grand Avenue, which adjoined the golf course.[309] A year later in 1907, NYC Parks wanted permission to build a road from the Yonkers shuttle's Caryl Station to Broadway in order to alleviate traffic there.[310] In addition, Rockwood Drive, needed to be rebuilt.[311] There was also a third proposal to pave a trail along the Old Croton aqueduct, which had already received a coating of fill from the Jerome Park Reservoir five years beforehand.[310] The New York City Board of Estimate received a proposal to connect Manhattan's Riverside Drive to the park in 1909, providing a direct route to the Upper West Side along what is now the Henry Hudson Parkway.[312] No new roads were built until 1929.[313] In the NYC Parks annual report for 1912, it was noted that the park's roads "stood the strain well," but that constant maintenance was needed to keep the roads in good shape.[203]

In 1929, Bronx Borough President Harry Bruckner put forth plans for the Grand Concourse to be extended through the park as part of a proposed parkway system.[314][315] The extension would go under Van Cortlandt Avenue, Jerome Avenue, and Gun Hill Road, going around Mosholu Avenue before taking the route of the Old Croton Aqueduct until it reached East 233rd Street. It would then turn northwest along Mosholu Avenue, crossing Tibbetts Brook and the Putnam Division before ending at the Saw Mill River Parkway.[316] There was pushback from the New York Park Association, the Regional Plan of New York, environmentalists, city planners, and other figures such as former senator Nathan Straus, Jr. These parties' opinions on the proposed extension ranged from rerouting it elsewhere to canceling it completely.[315][317][318] The New York State Legislature passed a law that would allow the Grand Concourse to be extended through the park.[319] Following this, there were calls for Governor Franklin D. Roosevelt to veto the bill.[320][321] Roosevelt vetoed the bill on April 17, 1929.[322] However, there were some influential supporters of the bill, including the Bronx Board of Trade and the Bronx Chamber of Commerce.[323] In 1931 they managed to get the extension built, albeit with a reduction in width from 182 to 80 feet (55 to 24 m).[324]

By 1934, there was a large system of interconnected bridle paths along trails and park roads. One bridle path ran close by to the lake, intersecting with Mosholu Avenue, before looping around the Parade Ground and diverging in the Northwest Woods. The Van Cortlandt Golf Course also had trails, as did the Old Croton Aqueduct and near Jerome Avenue and Holly Lane.[325] However, as the primary roads through the park such as Jerome, Grand, and Mosholu Avenues were constantly maintained and upgraded, secondary roads fell into a state of neglect. One such road was Rockwood Drive, which was closed in 1936 and became a bridle path.[326]

 
The interchange of Henry Hudson, Saw Mill, and Mosholu Parkways in the park

Highway construction in the mid-1930s further altered the park.[327] The first of these proposals was the Grand Concourse Extension, later the Mosholu Parkway Extension, which was already being paved in 1934, when Robert Moses became Parks Commissioner.[328] Moses immediately started planning for the Henry Hudson Parkway, which was originally envisioned as an extension of Riverside Drive.[118] As proposed, the parkway would have only skirted the park's northwest corner in order to connect with the Saw Mill River Parkway in Westchester.[329][327] However, due to that plan's high cost, the route was amended[327] and the Henry Hudson Parkway became an extension of the West Side Elevated Highway, cutting straight through the park to intersect with the Saw Mill River Parkway.[330] Unlike the Concourse extension, the Henry Hudson Parkway was minimally opposed by the community, as it was widely seen as an improvement.[331] Work on the parkway began in 1935.[332]

Simultaneously, work progressed on the Mosholu Parkway Extension, and Mosholu Avenue within the park was being modified so that it would be bisected by Henry Hudson Parkway. A bridge was constructed over the railroad in 1940, and a road linking the avenue and the new Mosholu Parkway was opened the next year.[282] Mosholu Parkway was then extended to the Henry Hudson Parkway via a partial cloverleaf interchange built near the park's sole freshwater marsh.[333][334] When biology teachers who used the marsh for their classes raised concerns about construction, an assistant to Moses said that the marsh would get a landscaping so that it looked like a series of lagoons surrounded by shrubbery.[333]

World War II halted all highway construction. By the time the war ended, Moses had become a Construction Coordinator for the city, and in 1947, proposed the Major Deegan Expressway through the park.[335] Since community leaders had some objections to the proposal, Moses held a public hearing to discuss it.[336][337] Opponents of the plan stated that the expressway would carry heavy truck traffic, as opposed to the existing parkways, where trucks were banned.[338] In response, Moses promised to place landscaping on the new expressway so it would fit with the park's character. This revised plan garnered the support of three prominent Bronx politicians.[338][339] The expressway itself was widely endorsed, but there were five proposed routings for the highway through Van Cortlandt Park, most of which called for using the old Putnam railroad's right-of-way.[340] The city ultimately selected Moses's plan in 1947.[341][340][339] The 1-mile (1.6 km) link was projected to cost $30 million at the time (equivalent to $365,000,000 in 2022).[341] Environmentalists protested the plan after finding out that this construction would demolish 32 acres (13 ha) of the marsh. Eventually, all except 7 acres (2.8 ha) were preserved, with the remaining 7 acres set aside for the Van Cortlandt golf course (see § Golf).[342] The Major Deegan Expressway was finally opened through the park in 1955.[119] The new expressway ran along the rights-of-way of Grand Avenue and Mosholu Avenue, causing these two roads to be demapped.[339]

Since then, there has not been much alteration to the park's roads. As of 2014, there are five pedestrian crossings over the Major Deegan Expressway, mostly in the northern section.[226] A sixth bridge near 233rd Street was proposed in a 2009 feasibility study,[227] However, in 2014, plans to build the $7.5 million pedestrian bridge were deferred due to a lack of money.[226] The next year, the city announced its intent to begin building the bridge at a cost of $12 million.[228][229]

Former railroads edit

 
The abandoned Putnam Railroad bridge over the Henry Hudson Parkway

The New York City & Northern Railroad (later the Putnam Division of the New York Central Railroad) was built in 1880, effectively separating the park site into two parts.[59] Its two stops in the Bronx were in the park itself, and at Kingsbridge to the south; after Kingsbridge, the railroad merged with the present-day Hudson Line of the Metro-North Railroad.[60] The line had two tracks between the Hudson Line junction and the Van Cortlandt station, north of which the tracks merged into one.[343] The company foreclosed in 1887, and the line went under the control of the New York and Northern Railroad Company.[344]

Beginning in 1888, another railroad, a 2-mile (3.2 km) shuttle service operated by Yonkers Rapid Transit Railway, was built to connect Kingsbridge and Yonkers. It ran off the main New York and Putnam Railroad line immediately north of the Van Cortlandt station.[45] There was an additional stop called Mosholu located in the northwest quadrant of the park site at Mosholu Avenue (now Mosholu Parkway). The Mosholu stop was designated as a request stop, wherein trains only stopped upon a passenger's request.[345][346][347] A railroad crossing next to the Putnam Division's Van Cortlandt Station was replaced with an underground pedestrian passageway in 1904 to allow safe pedestrian travel in the park.[348]

By 1942, the railroad was already seeing signs of decreased ridership: there were 600 daily riders on the Yonkers branch, down from 2,000 daily riders sixteen years prior. The Interstate Commerce Commission gave New York Central Railroad permission to abandon the branch on November 12, 1942.[349][350] Subsequently, riders filed a lawsuit to keep the line open, and the federal lawsuit was heard by the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, who ruled in favor of the railroad on June 21, 1943.[351] Nine days later, the railroad abandoned the line. By December 1944, the rails were being removed.[352] The main line also saw fewer riders as the years passed, and on March B, 1958, with daily ridership numbering between 400 and 500 commuters, the New York State Public Service Commission gave its approval for the railroad to stop passenger service on the line. The last day of service was June 1, 1958, and the station was abandoned, the line now only being used for freight.[353] Conrail continued to operate the line for freight use, though by 1979 trains only ran twice a day, and hikers often utilized the underused train tracks.[141]

Modern mass transit edit

 
The Van Cortlandt Park–242nd Street station

There are two nearby New York City Subway stations.[354] The eastern side of the park is served by Woodlawn (4 train), and the western side by 242nd Street (1 train).[355] The 242nd Street station was part of the first subway line of the Interborough Rapid Transit Company,[74] running along the current IRT Broadway–Seventh Avenue Line to City Hall[356][357] and later South Ferry.[358] The station, serving as the line's northern terminal, opened in 1908.[359][360] The Woodlawn station was built later as part of the IRT Jerome Avenue Line, opening in April 1918 as the line's northern terminus.[361]

Bus service is provided by New York City Bus's Bx9, Bx10, Bx16, and Bx34 local routes and its BxM3 and BxM4 express routes. Bee-Line Bus System's 1, 2, 3, 4, 20, and 21 routes also provide service to Westchester.[362]

In popular culture edit

Van Cortlandt Park appears in the Nero Wolfe detective stories by Rex Stout. It is where the bodies of several murder victims are found – Joan Wellman in Murder by the Book (1951)[363] and Simon Jacobs in Plot It Yourself (1959).[364] The park is also where the climactic scene of the 1944 novella Booby Trap takes place. The guilty Congressman Shattuck kills himself with a hand grenade after Nero Wolfe convinces him there is no chance of escaping justice.[365]

In Sol Yurick's 1965 novel The Warriors, the meeting between New York street gangs called by Ismael Rivera, leader of the Delancey Thrones, takes place in Van Cortlandt Park.[366] In the 1979 film adaptation of Yurick's novel, one of the gangs is called "The Van Cortlandt Rangers."[367]

The park is also the place of many happy memories of Horse Badorties, protagonist of William Kotzwinkle's 1974 book The Fan Man.[368] In Philip Kaufman's 1979 film The Wanderers, a football game between The Wanderers and rivals the Del Bombers occurs at Van Cortlandt Park. However, none of the scenes were filmed in the Bronx.[369] Van Cortlandt Park was referenced in José Rivera's play Marisol as a place where neo-Nazis burn homeless people alive in the apocalyptic world of the play.[370]

See also edit

Notes and references edit

Notes edit

  1. ^ a b c It has also been described as being the fourth-largest park at 1,122 acres (454 ha), if Flushing Meadows–Corona Park in Queens was counted at 1,255 acres (508 ha).[185] However, a resurveying in 2013 concluded that Van Cortlandt Park was 1,146 acres, while Flushing Meadows–Corona Park was calculated at a smaller 897 acres (363 ha).[186]
  2. ^ Maintenance and upkeep is also performed by Van Cortlandt Park Alliance, which is composed of the Van Cortlandt Park Conservancy and Friends of Van Cortlandt Park.

References edit

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  4. ^ O'Hea Anderson 1996, p. 12.
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January 19, 2024
cortlandt, park, acre, park, located, borough, bronx, york, city, owned, york, city, department, parks, recreation, managed, with, assistance, from, alliance, park, city, third, largest, named, cortlandt, family, which, prominent, area, during, dutch, english,. Van Cortlandt Park is a 1 146 acre 464 ha park located in the borough of the Bronx in New York City Owned by the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation it is managed with assistance from the Van Cortlandt Park Alliance The park the city s third largest a was named for the Van Cortlandt family which was prominent in the area during the Dutch and English colonial periods Van Cortlandt ParkAn entrance to Van Cortlandt ParkTypeMunicipalLocationThe Bronx New York City New York USCoordinates40 53 52 N 73 53 02 W 40 89778 N 73 88389 W 40 89778 73 88389Area1 146 acres 464 ha a Created1888Operated byNYC Parks b StatusOpenPublic transit accessNew York City Subway Woodlawn train and Van Cortlandt Park 242nd Street train stationsNew York City Bus Bx9 Bx10 Bx16 Bx34 local buses BxM3 BxM4 express busesBee Line Bus System 1 2 3 4 20 and 21Van Cortlandt Park s sports facilities include golf courses and several miles of paths for running as well as facilities for baseball basketball cricket cross country running football horseback riding lacrosse rugby soccer softball swimming tennis and track and field The park also contains five major hiking trails and other walking trails Its natural features include Tibbetts Brook Van Cortlandt Lake the largest freshwater lake in the Bronx old growth forests and outcrops of Fordham gneiss and Inwood marble Contained within the park is the Van Cortlandt House the oldest known surviving house in the Bronx and the Van Cortlandt Golf Course the oldest public golf course in the country The land that Van Cortlandt Park now occupies was purchased by Jacobus Van Cortlandt from John Barrett around 1691 His son Frederick built the Van Cortlandt House on the property but died before its completion Later the land was used during the Revolutionary War when the Stockbridge militia was destroyed by the Queen s Rangers In 1888 the family property was sold to the City of New York and made into a public parkland The Van Cortlandt House later designated as a historic landmark was converted into a public museum and new paths were created across the property to make it more passable In the 1930s the Robert Moses directed construction of the Henry Hudson Parkway and Mosholu Parkway fragmented Van Cortlandt Park into its six discontinuous pieces The last remaining freshwater marsh in New York State Tibbetts Brook was dredged and landscaped to accommodate construction causing large scale ecological disruption within the park The 1975 New York City fiscal crisis caused much of the park to fall into disrepair Gradual improvements began taking place from the late 1980s on including the addition of new pathways signage and security In 2014 the Van Cortlandt Park Master Plan 2034 was published Contents 1 History 1 1 Settlement and colonization 1 2 Planning 1 3 Creation 1 4 Early years 1 5 Decline 1 6 Improvements 2 Geography 2 1 Geology 2 2 Watercourses 3 Wildlife 4 Landmarks and structures 4 1 Trails 4 2 Landmarks 4 3 Other structures 5 Recreation 5 1 Golf 5 2 Running 5 3 City s only Canadian football game 6 Management 7 Transportation 7 1 Roads 7 2 Former railroads 7 3 Modern mass transit 8 In popular culture 9 See also 10 Notes and references 10 1 Notes 10 2 References 10 3 Sources 10 4 Further reading 11 External linksHistory editSettlement and colonization edit The forest in what is now Van Cortlandt Park has been around for 17 000 years since the end of the Wisconsin glaciation 1 The Wiechquaskeck a Wappinger people were among the first recorded people to inhabit in the area now referred to as Van Cortlandt Park They settled in the area around the 14th or 15th centuries 2 The Lenapes used the geographic features of the area to support their community for instance they used the Tibbetts Brook Spuyten Duyvil Creek or Hudson River for fishing and flatland areas for farming They formed a village named Keskeskick whose name roughly translates to sharp grass or sedge marsh in the Unami language 3 The strip of land on the Hudson River s east bank between the current day Spuyten Duyvil Creek and Yonkers was sold to the Dutch West India Company in the early 17th century Adriaen van der Donck a Dutch settler bought the land from the company in 1646 4 5 6 Van der Donck also paid the Indian chief Tacharew whose tribe used to live on the land as a friendly gesture 5 6 7 8 He named the land Colen Donck and built a house upon the land 9 The house was built between current day Van Cortlandt Lake and Broadway 8 It faced south probably because this was the location of a natural marshland 10 What is now the parade ground was used by van der Donck for farming 11 Van der Donck died in 1655 5 That year the Munsee bands that lived in the lower Hudson River valley briefly occupied New Amsterdam and attacked Pavonia and Staten Island during what is known as the Peach War 12 This forced the settlers including van der Donck s widow to flee to Manhattan 5 Following the takeover of the New Netherland colony by the British in 1664 the claim to the estate was awarded to Hugh O Neale the new husband of van der Donck s widow 13 Because the O Neales lived far away from the land the claim was awarded to O Neale s brother in law and van der Donck s widow s brother Elias Doughty who proceeded to sell off the portions of the property 5 14 13 15 In 1668 13 a portion of the land was sold to William Betts an English turner and his son in law George Tippett whom Tibbetts Brook would later be named for 14 15 16 This property included the modern park parade grounds 17 Next Doughty sold a 2 000 acre 810 ha tract of land including the current site of the Van Cortlandt House to Frederick Philipse Thomas Delavall and Thomas Lewis 13 Philipse bought out Delavall s and Lewis s land shares making the land part of the Philipsburg Manor which extended from Spuyten Duyvil Creek to the Croton River in modern Westchester County 5 14 Philipse s wife died and he remarried Olof Stevense Van Cortlandt s daughter herself a widow 18 Philipse s daughter Eva later married Jacobus Van Cortlandt who was Mrs Philipse s brother 5 14 18 nbsp One of the park s entrances exits at the city borderThe land that Van Cortlandt Park now occupies was acquired by Van Cortlandt from Philipse in the mid to late 1690s 5 14 19 20 17 In 1699 Van Cortlandt dammed Tibbetts Brook in order to power a sawmill and later a gristmill 21 22 creating Van Cortlandt Lake as a mill pond in the process 23 24 25 In 1732 Van Cortlandt acquired an additional parcel from the Tippett family 17 26 The estate was then passed on to Jacobus s son Frederick Van Cortlandt 1699 1749 and family in 1739 it was once a vast grain plantation 27 In 1748 Frederick built the Van Cortlandt House on the former Tippett property but died before its completion 28 10 27 17 The Van Cortlandts did not primarily live in that house instead staying in Manhattan most of the time 10 27 A family burial ground was created in 1749 10 later to be known as Vault Hill 29 30 Frederick who was buried in Vault Hill 29 30 had willed the massive home and surrounding lands to his son James Van Cortlandt 1727 1787 31 The Van Cortlandt family land was used during the American Revolution by both the Loyalists and Patriots owing to James s leadership role early on in the revolution On May 30 1775 the New York Provincial Congress placed James on a committee to create a report on whether it was feasible to build a fort near his family s house 32 33 British General William Howe made the house his headquarters on November 13 1776 34 thus placing it behind British held ground 10 35 The Van Cortlandts wished to stay neutral in the war however 10 Later the grounds were used by Patriot militia leaders Comte de Rochambeau Marquis de Lafayette and George Washington 36 28 The house itself was Washington s headquarters after his troops were defeated in the 1776 Battle of Long Island 35 That same year Augustus Van Cortlandt hid city records under Vault Hill to protect them during the war turning them over to the new American government after the war 28 10 30 It was in Indian Field at the present day intersection of Van Cortlandt Park East and 233rd Street that the Stockbridge militia was destroyed by the Queen s Rangers and 38 Indians from the militia were killed in 1778 37 38 39 40 In 1781 Washington returned to the house to strategize with Rochambeau while their troops waited outside on what is now the Parade Ground and Vault Hill 10 He later lit campfires outside the house to deceive the British into thinking that his troops were still on the grounds 30 Washington used the house one final time in 1783 after the Treaty of Paris The British had just withdrawn their troops from Manhattan and Washington and George Clinton were getting ready to enter the island stopping over at the house before doing so 10 28 In the 1830s officials in a rapidly expanding New York City saw a need for a larger water supply Major David Bates Douglass was appointed to perform engineering studies on the future Old Croton Aqueduct in March 1833 41 42 Douglass made estimates for the new aqueduct in 1833 1834 and John Martineau performed a separate study in 1834 Both found the proposed route which ran through the present day park to be okay 41 42 Thus in 1837 construction started on the Aqueduct which ran 41 miles 66 km from the Croton River upstate to the New York Public Library Main Branch and Bryant Park in midtown Manhattan 43 44 The project was built by 3 000 4 000 laborers who completed the entire aqueduct in five years 43 The aqueduct s builders constructed a gatehouse within the present day park to provide access to the aqueduct s interior 45 46 The old aqueduct was supplemented by the New Croton Aqueduct in 1890 which also ran through the park The Old Croton Aqueduct was in use until 1955 though the part that ran through the park was closed down in 1897 after the new aqueduct was connected to the Jerome Park Reservoir 45 47 48 Planning edit In 1876 Frederick Law Olmsted was hired to survey the Bronx and map out streets based on the local geography Olmsted noted the natural beauty of the Van Cortlandt estate comparing it to Central Park which he designed and recommended the city purchase the property 49 50 Around the same time New York Herald editor John Mullaly pushed for the creation of parks in New York City particularly lauding the Van Cortlandt and Pell families properties in the western and eastern Bronx respectively He formed the New York Park Association in November 1881 51 52 There were objections to the system which would apparently be too far from Manhattan in addition to precluding development on the site 53 54 However newspapers and prominent lobbyists who supported such a park system were able to petition the bill into the New York State Senate and later the New York State Assembly the legislature s lower house 55 56 In June 1884 Governor Grover Cleveland signed the New Parks Act into law authorizing the creation of the park system 55 57 Legal disputes carried on for years exacerbated by the fact that Luther R Marsh vice president of the New York Park Association owned land near Van Cortlandt Park in particular Opponents argued that building a park system would divert funds from more important infrastructure like schools and docks that everyone in the city instead of just the property owners near the proposed park was required to pay taxes to pay for the parks construction and that since Marsh was trying to parcel off some of his land to developers the park s size should be reduced in order to prevent him from profiting off park usage However most of this opposition was directed at the construction of Pelham Bay Park which was then in Westchester 58 Supporters argued that the parks were for the benefit of all the city s citizens thus justifying the citywide park tax that the value of properties near the parks would appreciate greatly over time that the Commission had only chosen property that could easily be converted into a park and that Pelham Bay Park would soon be annexed to the city Ultimately the parks were established despite the objections of major figures like Mayors William Russell Grace and Abram Hewitt Comptroller Edward V Loew and Assemblymen Henry Bergh and Theodore Roosevelt 58 nbsp Remains of the New York and Putnam Railroad Van Cortlandt Station inside the parkIn 1880 while the new park was being planned the New York City amp Northern Railroad later the New York and Putnam Railroad was built through the center of the park 59 It had two stops in the Bronx one inside the park and another to the south at Kingsbridge South of Kingsbridge the railroad merged with the present day Hudson Line of the Metro North Railroad 60 The tracks were used for passenger traffic until 1958 and by freight trains until 1981 38 2 A shuttle train was operated by Yonkers Rapid Transit Railway between Kingsbridge and Yonkers It ran off the main New York and Putnam Railroad line immediately north of the Van Cortlandt station 45 Service began in March 1888 and ran until 1942 see Former railroads 38 Creation edit The family property was sold to the City of New York and made into a public parkland in 1888 10 The majority of the grain fields were converted into a sprawling lawn dubbed the Parade Ground while the Van Cortlandt House was converted into a public museum 20 61 The construction of the Parade Ground required demolition of a few old buildings and cornfields 62 The Parade Ground was immediately used by the National Guard for brigade practice replacing the parade ground of Prospect Park 63 64 The ground received unspecified improvements in 1893 1894 65 With the city s approval particularly overgrown areas of the property were made passable Wide walking paths were built over original walkways including the thin paths that led to the Van Cortlandt family cemetery high on the nearby bluffs Certain lands around the house were then filled in for the purpose of creating a Colonial Garden 66 which was proposed in 1897 67 68 During excavation of the grounds Indian artifacts and graves were found 69 corresponding to the old village of Keskeskick 3 The nine hole Van Cortlandt Golf Course opened on July 6 1895 70 71 as the country s first and oldest public golf course 72 73 The 2 561 yard 2 342 m course comprised current holes 1 2 3 6 7 12 13 and 14 The first eight holes were easier and less than 200 yards 180 m apart but the last one had a fairway 700 yards 640 m in length The ninth hole which spanned two stone walls and two small brooks was among the country s hardest holes Four years after the course opened the city hired Tom Bendelow nicknamed the Johnny Appleseed of Golf to expand it to 18 holes 71 70 73 74 The course added a clubhouse in 1902 75 which also doubled as an ice skating house 76 77 At first the park was sparsely used for sports In 1899 there were 10 7 and 5 permits issued for lawn tennis baseball and football respectively 78 79 The Parade Ground was converted to recreational use starting in 1902 when the National Guard added fields for polo 80 In 1907 due to overcrowding Dr William Hornaday transferred 15 of the Bronx Zoo s then rare bison to the Parade Ground 81 where they stayed until they were shipped to prairie land in Oklahoma later that year 82 83 The Colonial Garden designed by landscape architect Samuel Parsons started construction in 1902 67 84 and opened the following June 67 85 Besides plants the garden had rustic wooden bridges and wooden stairs and a handsome fountain and central court 86 A Shakespeare Garden was also opened that year with a grand stairway leading down to it 87 The next year park officials realized that the Colonial Garden s construction was of poor quality and hard to cultivate The garden had to be raised 3 5 feet 1 1 m and a nursery needed to be built to transport the plants during the garden s reconstruction The rustic wooden bridges were to be replaced with stone bridges while the wooden stairs were to be superseded by stone stairs 88 Not only did many plants die during the process but the actual rebuilding was delayed until 1911 89 Two years later the Parks Commissioner for the Bronx refused to allocate reconstruction funds because he stated the garden looked just fine Under threat of tearing the garden down the city had to find money to fill and drain the ground 89 90 The rebuilding contract was awarded in 1909 91 and completed by 1911 92 Early years edit Various adjustments were made over succeeding years A network of roads through the park was built soon after allowing the construction of picnic areas and hiking trails as well as making the forests more accessible to visitors 93 A stone memorial was placed at Indian Field in 1906 94 40 with a plaque misspelling the name of the Indian chief Abraham Ninham as Abraham Nimham 39 95 One particular concern was the threat of the wetlands serving as breeding grounds for malaria borne mosquitoes 96 which had drawn the ire of local residents and property owners as they believed the wetlands to be unsightly and unsanitary 97 98 The marshlands were filled in between 1906 and 1922 10 The marsh to the southwest of the Van Cortlandt Station was converted to a lake 99 An outlet sewer under Broadway was built in 1907 97 98 100 From 1903 to 1911 NYC Parks cleaned the 13 foot deep 4 0 m Van Cortlandt Lake removed the original earthen dam and emptied the lake in order to dredge the lake bed to a lower depth A new dam was installed to reform the lake 101 93 102 The former marshland was filled in 103 104 During a 1910s excavation for a sewer pipe stones were unearthed that were suspected to be from the old van der Donck estate 10 105 35 During World War I the Parade Ground was used to train soldiers 106 2 Eight tennis courts opened in 1914 with admission being 1 per person 79 107 and owing to the Van Cortlandt Golf Course s immense popularity the Mosholu Links also opened that year 75 107 74 By 1917 the Parade Ground contained 10 out of the park s baseball diamonds The park s recreational facilities were quite popular with more than 10 000 people using them on a busy day 108 109 However during and following World War I the Parade Ground was used for war training Until 1926 the baseball fields did not contain backstops and had to be vacated by July 4 of every year so the National Guard could use the field 108 110 nbsp Van Cortlandt Park Oscar Florianus Bluemner 1936The 6 2 mile 10 0 km cross country running course was inaugurated in 1914 111 The track started out as a flat path became hilly turned onto a little spell of road work went into the forest and crossed a water before turning back A year later it hosted the Metropolitan Association of the Amateur Athletic Union s Junior and Senior Cross Country championships 111 112 A modified 3 1 mile 5 0 km cross country course opened on November 5 1921 with runners simply changing direction at the city border The new course which started at the original polo fields did not conflict with either of the golf courses 113 In 1922 there was a proposal to acquire land for the future Saw Mill River Parkway which would connect the park to 424 acres 172 ha of open space in Westchester when completed 114 Through the 1930s the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation kept adding new recreational facilities in the park 69 The Colonial and Shakespeare Gardens had a combined 250 000 flowers by 1931 but both were demolished by the end of the decade due to bad drainage 87 In 1934 Robert Moses became the New York City Parks Commissioner 115 and during his 16 year tenure as commissioner altered almost every aspect of the park 116 His job partially entailed balancing the needs of area residents whose numbers had grown in the past decade with transit users who traveled to the park from the north and south 117 Moses s development plans in the 1930s called for the construction of the Henry Hudson Parkway and Mosholu Parkway to bisect Van Cortlandt Park and meet at a trumpet interchange about half a mile north of the center merging into the Saw Mill River Parkway 118 Due to objections over the construction of roads inside the park the width of the parkways lanes was reduced 119 Tibbetts Brook was dredged and landscaped in 1938 to accommodate construction 120 Such construction continued until 1955 during which the Major Deegan Expressway current Interstate 87 was also built bisecting the Mosholu Parkway 119 This conflicted with Moses s plans for the park as a rural oasis 121 as highway construction ultimately separated the park into six pieces 120 and demolished most of the remaining marsh in the park 122 This construction also induced siltation of the brook leading to further creation of marshes 120 123 121 Moses also made improvements to the park itself building new walkways paving dirt roads creating playgrounds and installing lights 119 Baseball soccer and cricket fields were added in 1938 106 The Van Cortlandt Stadium was added in 1939 on the site of a former swamp 87 124 and a pool followed in 1970 87 Moses also landscaped the areas near the Woodlawn and 242nd Street subway stations to attract park visitors from other neighborhoods 125 During his tenure as Parks Commissioner Moses took aggressive approach to preserving the park s quality 126 For instance six mothers were issued court summonses in 1942 after letting their children dig in the park 127 and two airplane pilots were fined in 1947 for unauthorized airplane landings 128 Around 1939 the old aqueduct which was now a popular hiking trail started becoming a popular route with cyclists Soon after there was a proposal to redevelop the trail as a bike path 129 This proposal never came to fruition although in the mid 1970s the city built a separate bike path along Mosholu Parkway the Bronx River Parkway and Pelham Parkway between Jerome Avenue and Pelham Bay Park 130 Decline edit By the 1960s large portions of the park such as Tibbetts Brook were being polluted by human activity in addition the brook now flowed into the Broadway sewer at the south end of Van Cortlandt Lake 120 123 Pollution from upstream and the highways and spillover of chemicals used in the golf course killed fish in the lake 131 59 15 This problem was first noticed in May 1961 when thousands of dead bass pickerel catfish perch and carp floated up at the edge of the lake 123 132 The mass death of fish was blamed on siltation 133 Three years later fish were still being killed by siltation 134 City investigators took water samples from the lake and found that they contained large amounts of weeds and sediment 135 About 22 000 square feet 2 000 m2 of the lake s surface area was being lost to sedimentation every year 136 In addition an algal bloom caused the lake to be in a low oxygen condition endangering plants and animals in and around the lake 135 Unpleasant odors in the summer also reduced recreational opportunities on the lake and these conditions combined made it virtually impossible to come into contact with the lake s water without getting sick 136 137 By 1976 there was a moratorium on all boating activities on the lake 123 138 The Van Cortlandt Golf Course was used as a ski slope during the winters starting in 1961 and up to 3 000 visitors would use the slopes each weekend 139 By 1964 with the use of artificial snow it was also possible to ski during warmer days 140 The seasonal ski slope was closed in the late 1960s when the city decided to allow golfers to use the Van Cortlandt Course during winters 139 Also in the late 1960s the city decided to build a series of public pools on the site of the Colonial Garden consisting of a diving a swimming and a wading pool Construction on the 1 5 million pools started in early 1969 and was completed by 1970 141 Because of the swampy nature of the ground underneath it the pools soon began to crackle and set By 1979 the locker rooms were heavily vandalized and the diving pool had been closed 142 nbsp Rocky terrain in the parkThe city s fiscal crisis in the 1970s caused the rest of the park to fall into disrepair 69 143 A dearth of funds exacerbated the pollution of the park 69 Hands on education programs at the park were reduced to passive observations of flora and fauna 136 15 Elsewhere in the park excessive foot traffic was eroding the soil in the forests The stock of younger replacement trees in the old growth forest had relatively little diversity compared to other natural forests 120 In 1979 New York City Councilwoman June Eisland released a report on Van Cortlandt Park The report noted that pollutants from the Major Deegan Expressway were entering Van Cortlandt Lake and that the park ecosystem was also being harmed by inadequate drainage soil sterilants that were used on the Putnam Branch tracks and a fungicide with 8 5 cadmium content that was being sprayed on the golf course 138 144 A year later a private landscaping firm estimated that it would cost 4 7 million to restore the Van Cortlandt Lake By this point the lake was so dirty that a small boat could not float on it even though the lake was 15 feet 4 6 m deep 145 Catfish were the only fish that could survive in the lake water 146 The city of Yonkers eventually attributed the cause of the Van Cortlandt Lake s pollution to four storm sewers that were found to be illegally connected to Tibbetts Brook upstream 147 148 The utter disrepair in the park prompted some informal rules at the park s golf courses For instance the Los Angeles Times noted that a player was allowed to drop his ball a club length away if it rolled up against an abandoned auto or in one case a boat To thwart robbers besieged golfers quit playing in traditional foursomes and instead ventured forth in football team sized units Some players added an extra club a night stick or tucked tear gas spray into their golf bags 149 Years later one writer recalled that dozens of the course s trees died and flagsticks were reduced to broken bamboo poles stuck into the ground 150 Weeds overgrew the course and golfers would wear long sleeved shirts to ward off against the city s insufficient mosquito repellents Homeless squatters moved into the park while courses fell into disrepair replaced by dirt tracks and huts and forts built by neighborhood kids 149 In 1985 the city licensed control of the courses to Los Angeles based American Golf Corporation for 60 years leading to their restoration 149 Other parts of the park also fell into disrepair such as Vault Hill whose headstones and crypts were vandalized in the 1960s 29 30 As early as 1962 a New York Times reader wrote of vandalism on Vault Hill 151 152 A lack of annual maintenance of the park s jogging tracks and bridle paths had caused them to erode and become overgrown at some places In 1978 1979 NYC Parks performed a wholesale renovation of the park s eroded and dilapidated bridle paths and jogging tracks 153 The Parade Ground remained popular and the New York Philharmonic and Metropolitan Opera performed in the field during the summer 154 However it too had deteriorated because of intensive use the grounds topsoil had eroded away and the sidewalks started to buckle 155 In 1978 the Perrier Company donated a fitness trail consisting of 12 exercise machines to the park there were originally supposed to be 18 machines but the extra six machines were deemed unnecessary 156 Two shuffleboard courts were also installed in the Parade Grounds the same year but went unused because of a lack of playing equipment 157 Improvements edit In response to studies and accounts that showed the bad condition of the lake the state restored the fish population of the lake in 1978 101 158 131 In 1977 the Bronx Borough Board created a special committee to oversee and develop plans for improving Van Cortlandt Park 159 160 The Friends of Van Cortlandt Park soon came up with its own suggestions to improve the park 161 After the parcourse for the parade grounds was approved in 1978 the New York City Department of Parks promised to cooperate on the Van Cortlandt Park improvement plans 156 The 1979 Eisland plan also detailed suggestions for park improvements 138 This culminated in the 1980 appointment of a park coordinator who would start devising details of a master plan for the park 162 In 1985 a study recommended ecological restoration of the lake and forest which had been overtaken by invasive species introduced during highway construction 120 163 Since then there have been seven plans for restoring natural elements of the park as well as three plans for park restoration 164 Gradual improvements began taking place in the late 1980s including the addition of new pathways signage and security as well as the restoration of playgrounds and other recreational facilities 165 In January 1988 NYC Parks conducted a study to determine the specific elements of the park that needed restoration 166 Highway structures were also reconfigured to clean runoff from these structures 167 An excavation in the 1990s yielded over 2 500 artifacts 168 A set of tennis courts were proposed within the park east of the Van Cortlandt House in the 1990s despite concerns from preservationists 169 170 though the courts were approved 171 nbsp The Sachkerah Woods Playground located at Van Cortlandt Park s southeast cornerThe city built the Croton Water Filtration Plant a drinking water treatment facility under the park s Mosholu Golf Course Plant operations began in 2015 The plant was needed in order to filter contaminants from urban runoff pollution in the Croton River watershed and protect the public from Giardia and Cryptosporidium microorganisms which can cause serious health problems 172 The Croton plant was built after a lawsuit was filed in 1997 against the city by the U S Environmental Protection Agency EPA the U S Department of Justice and the State of New York 173 The city settled the suit and a consent decree was issued with the condition that the city would build the plant by 2006 174 The project experienced delays and ballooning costs due to objections from the local community which required the city to propose alternate sites for the plant 175 176 The plant was built 160 feet 49 m below the Mosholu Golf Course at a cost of 3 2 billion 172 To lessen the disruption caused by the plant s construction in 2010 the city used mitigation funds from the construction budget to restore the Van Cortlandt Park Parade Ground 164 177 The Sachkerah Woods Playground located at the park s southeast corner near the Mosholu Golf Course was also built using Croton mitigation funds 178 As part of the Van Cortlandt Park Master Plan 2034 critical ecological elements of the park such as the forest the rural landscape and Tibbetts Brook would be restored and the brook would be diverted 179 As of March 2014 update when the report was written the lack of natural drainage points within Van Cortlandt Park led to the flooding of recreational areas within the park during heavy rains 180 The park s paths would also be restored with the addition of three new pedestrian bridges a playground four activity centers of which two would be outdoors and two would be indoors a skate park an athletic field and three basketball courts built within the park Comfort stations and food concessions would also be added 179 The Van Cortlandt Golf Course was renovated in 2016 181 The skate park new playground and path improvements were completed in 2020 182 NYC Parks started renovating the Woodlawn Playground in 2021 for 1 million 183 One of the pedestrian bridges which would have crossed the Major Deegan Expressway was postponed in 2020 after its cost had increased to 23 million the bridge was canceled in 2023 184 Geography editAt 1 146 acres 464 ha Van Cortlandt Park is the third largest park in New York City a behind the Staten Island Greenbelt 1 778 acres 720 ha and Pelham Bay Park 2 772 acres 1 122 ha 187 186 188 It has numerous attractions and features that are both recreational and educational 189 Geology edit The different parts of Van Cortlandt Park have a varied geology The Northwest Woods and Old Croton Aqueduct Trailway have a steep terrain dotted with Fordham gneiss a metamorphic rock that is very hard to weather The Tibbetts Brook valley is set in Inwood marble which weathers more easily The east side of the park near Indian Field contains Yonkers granite an igneous rock that mixed with Fordham gneiss as a hot magma before later cooling 190 191 Watercourses edit Van Cortlandt Park contains the Bronx s largest freshwater lake the eponymous Van Cortlandt Lake 189 The lake is 4 to 8 feet 1 2 to 2 4 m deep at various times of year and has an area of 18 acres 7 3 ha 192 The lake is used for recreational fishing 193 as it includes species such as largemouth bass black crappie brown bullhead bluegill pumpkinseed golden shiner common carp white sucker and yellow perch 192 194 It is fed by Tibbetts Brook a stream originating in Yonkers which runs through a series of culverts before draining into the south edge of the lake at approximately West 242nd Street 23 131 195 There are efforts to daylight this south end into the former New York and Putnam Railroad right of way that runs through the park 180 196 as part of the park s faster plan 197 There is no surviving documentation for the creation of Van Cortlandt Lake 21 In 1699 Jacobus Van Cortlandt dammed Tibbetts Brook to power a sawmill creating a mill pond at the site where the lake is 23 24 25 Later he also added a gristmill 21 22 The sawmill was relocated around 1823 and stayed in operation until 1889 21 198 The gristmill was destroyed by lightning in 1901 199 nbsp Van Cortlandt Lake from the western shoreBy the time the park was created Van Cortlandt Lake needed to be cleaned as cesspools in Yonkers had leaked sewage into Tibbetts Brook which fed into the lake 93 200 A 1903 annual report from the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation mentioned that the lake had probably not been cleaned since the mid 18th century and now contained a layer of refuse and vegetation on top and an ooze two to three feet deep on the bottom with qualities more like a semi bog 201 86 Cleaning of the lake started in 1903 The lake s original earthen dam was removed the lake was emptied and 30 000 cubic yards 23 000 m3 of deposits were dredged from the lake bed 202 201 A new 2 270 foot 690 m retaining wall was then erected along the lake s eastern shore and a new dam was installed to reform the lake and to allow future cleaning of the lake without having to dredge it 201 After the opening of an overflow drain in 1911 1912 which connected to the sewer under Broadway completed in 1907 92 203 Tibbetts Brook was directed into the new sewer 70 201 The construction of the Van Cortlandt Golf Course compounded the lake s dirty condition and by 1912 the lake and brook contained significant sedimentation 201 Nearby residents also disliked the wetlands near the lake as they could be used to breed malaria borne mosquitoes 96 and were thus seen as unsightly and unsanitary 97 In 1896 they proposed to fill the wetlands in 204 and the infill proposal was funded by the New York City Board of Estimate in 1899 205 Subsequently the Parks Department proposed to dredge the swamp and create a lake in its stead 206 but despite this plan receiving 70 000 in funding in 1906 it was deemed not feasible to drain the swamp directly into the Broadway sewer 207 96 Another plan to remove the swamps in the park s southwest was approved in 1904 The plan was to build an athletic field in the southwest swamp s place 208 but all swamp infill proposals for this sector were rejected in 1917 209 By 1922 there were 23 acres 9 3 ha of swampland left in the park and the Parks Department hoped to convert parts of it for some athletic purpose but this required the New York Central Railroad to raise one of its bridges first so the swampland could be accessed 210 However there are no records of that bridge being raised or of the swamp being converted 96 In its early years the lake was used for boating canoeing curling and ice skating By 1899 the lake was used by up to 3 000 skaters on weekdays and 10 000 on weekends 211 The ice skating house shared with the golf course was added in 1902 77 By 1935 the lake was used by approximately 20 000 skaters daily 212 nbsp Panorama of Van Cortlandt Lake from the east shoreWildlife editThere are several old growth forests with tree species and genera such as black oak hickory beech cherry birch sweetgum red maple and tuliptree 2 213 The forests also contain wild turkeys red tailed hawks great horned owls bats Eastern chipmunks Eastern gray squirrels groundhogs gypsy moths Eastern cottontail rabbits striped skunks North American raccoons Virginia opossums white tailed deer and Eastern coyotes In addition over 130 species of butterflies can be found in the park 2 213 In 1937 it was noted that the marshlands had fauna such as red winged blackbirds yellowthroats green bottle flies beetles dragonflies tadpoles herons kingfishers and ospreys Its flora included cattail skunk cabbage and moss 214 Its avian population during the winters has exceeded that of either Central or Prospect Parks a total of 301 bird species have been seen in the park since 1875 when records were first kept 215 Amphibians present include American bullfrogs red backed salamanders and spring peepers Also present in and around the park s waterways and wetlands are common snapping turtles and Eastern painted turtles as well as red eared sliders that were introduced to the region 216 Landmarks and structures editTrails edit nbsp Putnam Trail entrance looking south from the city line There are five major hiking trails in the park 217 218 The Putnam Trail 1 5 miles 2 4 km easy 217 runs north through the woods to the east of this lawn and west of Van Cortlandt Lake through the golf course and along Tibbetts Brook and the former New York and Putnam Railroad line into Yonkers where it connects to Westchester County s paved South County Trailway 219 Previously unpaved the Putnam Trail underwent a reconstruction project starting in August 2019 and was reopened in October 2020 as a paved pedestrian and bicycle path 220 The rails themselves were overrun with weeds but they were no longer usable by trains 221 The remains of the former Van Cortlandt Park station can be seen along the trail 2 As part of the park s 2034 master plan NYC Parks undertook a project to pave the entirety of the trail through Van Cortlandt Park as well as a short extension to the south making it usable for both pedestrians and bicyclists 222 A construction contract for the paving project was awarded in October 2018 to Grace Industries and it was completed in October 2020 223 224 The Old Croton Aqueduct Trailway 1 1 miles 1 8 km easy moderate 217 was created in 1968 when the New York State Office of Parks Recreation and Historic Preservation had bought a 26 2 mile 42 2 km stretch of the Old Croton Aqueduct for use as a walking trail 43 48 It starts in Van Cortlandt Park as a grass and dirt trail 48 and runs north along the route of the old aqueduct 43 44 The trail features vestiges of an old disused brick tunnel that brought water to Manhattan as well as a gatehouse for the aqueduct 221 Within the park the Old Croton Aqueduct trail borders Mosholu Golf Center and Driving Range as well as the Allen Shandler Recreation Area 225 Its southern end is cut off by the Major Deegan Expressway in the southwestern end of the park 226 As part of the Croton Water Filtration Plant project the New York City Department of Environmental Protection was given 200 million to mitigate the effects of constructing the plant A feasibility study in 2009 found that a bridge near the location of 233rd Street was the most feasible and would connect the two sections of the trail 227 This bridge was deferred over lack of funding in 2014 226 before planning resumed in 2015 228 229 nbsp The park s own little stonehenge a former structural stone testing site for the construction of Grand Central TerminalThe John Kieran Nature Trail 1 25 miles 2 01 km easy 217 which connects to the Putnam Trail opened in 1987 and is named after local writer and naturalist John Kieran 230 The path features 13 stone pillars each made of a different variety of stone that were tested for the facade of Grand Central Terminal during the terminal s construction 2 231 The variety eventually chosen was Indiana limestone 231 because it was cheap 2 The trail hugs the edge of the Van Cortlandt Lake and Tibbetts Brook marsh 225 The John Muir Trail 1 5 miles 2 4 km moderate is the park s only east west trail 217 that connects the three northern forested areas 225 It was established in 1997 232 Various species of trees and flowering plants can be seen along the trail such as northern red oak sweetgum and tulips 233 There is a large steep hill in the center of the trail 232 The Cass Gallagher Nature Trail 1 4 miles 2 3 km moderate difficult is the hardest trail in the park 217 It was given its current name in 1984 named after a local resident who was a fervent advocate of preserving the park s environment 234 Shaped as a loop it extends through the rocky forests of the park s northwestern portion 221 It was once a self guided interpretive nature trail where hikers could observe natural elements along the trail 225 Along this trail there is a thick undergrowth beneath a canopy of deciduous trees that date back centuries However logging and forest fires have killed some of these trees Pioneer species which inhabit the plots of the forest destroyed by logging and fire include sumac and black locusts 221 There is also an outcropping of Fordham gneiss the last vestige of a giant mountain chain that used to run through this area until the Wisconsin glaciation 221 The exposed rocks also contain mica and quartz 2 There have been many sightings of bird species along this trail such as those of woodpeckers owls quail and pheasants 221 This trail repeatedly crosses a 3 mile 4 8 km cross country trail 225 A bikeway runs east from the golf course s clubhouse to connect to the Mosholu Parkway bike path 235 Some trail sections are a part of the East Coast Greenway a 3 000 mile long 4 800 km trail system connecting Maine to Florida 236 Landmarks edit nbsp The historic Van Cortlandt House now a museumThe Van Cortlandt House in the southern part of Van Cortlandt Park was erected by Frederick Van Cortlandt in 1748 237 This house still stands making it the oldest known surviving house in the Bronx 238 237 The estate the house sits on was of major importance during the American Revolution Troops from both the British and Colonial American armies rested in this house during the time of war 40 The Van Cortlandt family owned the property until they decided to sell both the house and land to the City of New York in 1886 237 Ten years later the house was restored as a museum displaying the culture and lifestyle of 18th century families 239 It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1967 and became a National Historic Landmark in 1976 240 241 Near the museum is a 15 mile marker for the old Albany Post Road which was relocated to its current position in 1934 after the road was rerouted 242 In 1938 officials at San Francisco s Golden Gate International Exposition gave a 4 5 foot 1 4 m walnut tree to the City of New York who then planted the tree outside the museum in the place of another tree that had died 243 Vault Hill the family burial ground still exists Located 169 feet 52 m above sea level it is northeast of the Parade Ground and west of Tibbetts Brook and the Van Cortlandt Golf Course 29 There may have been an unmarked graveyard for Native Americans and African slaves which was likely destroyed when the New York and Putnam Railroad line was built Another graveyard exists for the Berrian family who lived nearby during the 18th century and were related by marriage to the Tippetts 244 The Memorial Grove honors Bronxites who served in World War II and the Korean War It is located by the road to the Van Cortlandt House close to Broadway 245 246 Created in 1949 the grove contained a tree and a bronze plaque for each of the 39 soldiers who were memorialized 106 246 247 By the time the grove was renovated in 2011 248 there were only 18 plaques left 247 Restoration was completed in 2012 249 Other structures edit Van Cortlandt Park contains Citywide Nursery one of three greenhouses operated by NYC Parks It grows about 200 000 plants each year 250 Recreation editThe Parade Ground is north of the museum in the western part of the park 251 When the park was originally built there was a law dictating that the Parade Ground should be vacated for National Guard use if required 252 253 The field was originally used by the National Guard for brigade practice 63 64 but this use was decommissioned by the 1930s and the land near Broadway was converted to 17 multipurpose baseball football or soccer fields and two additional fields solely for cricket 254 Today it contains 10 251 of the borough s 19 total cricket fields 255 and a Gaelic football field 251 221 The cricket fields were renovated from 2010 to 2013 for 13 million During the renovation the fields were relocated such that they did not overlap with each other or with the soccer and baseball fields 255 The Parade Ground also has other areas dedicated to various sports including six baseball fields four football fields five soccer fields and a 1 5 mile 2 4 km course for cross country running 251 256 The Rolling Stones commenced their Licks Tour here in 2002 getting into a blimp from the Parade Ground 257 The park is home to a free public pool along with numerous playgrounds for children and areas dedicated for barbecuing 258 The pool was added in 1970 61 87 120 though proposals for such a pool date back to 1907 97 259 It was designed by Heery amp Heery architects and cost 1 6 million 260 The pool contains a 17 280 US gallon 65 400 L 14 390 imp gal wading pool a diving pool and a 380 000 US gallon 1 400 000 L 320 000 imp gal Olympic sized pool 260 261 The Van Cortlandt Stadium was built by Parks Commissioner Moses and Mayor Fiorello H La Guardia during the Great Depression and was funded by Works Progress Administration It is located north of Van Cortlandt Park South near Broadway in the park s southwest corner 254 262 The stadium opened on September 22 1939 to a day of track events and a football game between Manhattan College and Fordham University 87 124 It had 18 tennis courts five basketball courts six handball courts three baseball fields three football fields including one in the stadium itself three horseshoe pitching fields a running track and a bowling green as well as water fountains and lockers 263 In 1994 Mayor Giuliani funded a 415 000 project for concrete repairs to the stadium 264 and in 1998 the 0 25 mile 0 40 km running track was rebuilt for nearly a million dollars 264 The park is the home of the Manhattan College Jaspers college baseball team 265 In 2015 the Jaspers moved to Dutchess Stadium in Fishkill New York 266 but in 2021 the Jaspers moved back to Van Cortlandt Park 267 nbsp Riverdale StablesRiverdale Stables located on 21 acres 8 5 ha of the park offers horseback riding 268 269 270 In 1934 there were two stables a larger one east of the Putnam Division near Van Cortlandt Avenue and 242nd Street and a smaller one to the Van Cortlandt Course clubhouse s east 271 The Indian Field has baseball and softball fields a sandbox picnic tables tennis courts horseshoes courts and shuffleboard courts 272 The Allen Shandler Recreation Area renamed from the Holly Park Recreation Area in 1966 after a neighborhood boy who was diagnosed with a brain tumor in the 1960s and died at age 15 has baseball fields benches picnic tables barbecue grills and a comfort station 273 Other activities available at the park include basketball ice skating and fishing 256 Golf edit nbsp The lake and golf course at sunset the former railroad bridge is at far leftThe Van Cortlandt Golf Course which opened on July 6 1895 with nine holes 70 73 is located centrally on the park grounds 189 73 Within a year the course became very crowded and disorganized with crowds behaving poorly 73 Rules were set in 1896 with golfers paying caddies 15 cents per round or 25 cents per two rounds Only caddies with badges could be hired and bicycles baby strollers horse riding and horse drawn carriages were banned from the course 274 The course was upgraded to 18 holes in 1899 73 70 71 and the grounds gained a new clubhouse by 1902 75 The new Van Cortlandt Golf Course was supposed to be experimental and if the course was successful similar courses would be laid around the country 275 Other American cities were interested in building such courses 276 The 1899 Bendelow reconstruction had rebuilt the course so that it now spanned 120 acres 49 ha compared to the 55 acres 22 ha of the previous course The new course was now 6 060 yards 5 540 m long or about 3 44 miles 5 54 km 277 NYC Parks reconfigured the course again the following year so that congestion would be prevented and accidents avoided Boulders were relocated greens were enlarged and hazards were built in order to space out the holes 278 A clubhouse was added two years later 75 Plans to extend the clubhouse were rejected in 1917 279 On July 13 1905 Isaac Mackie won an Open Tournament at the Van Cortlandt Park course shooting 152 and holding off joint second place finishers Willie Anderson and Bernard Nicholls who finished at 157 It was the first ever professional tournament held on a public golf course in the United States 280 In 1914 a second golf course the Mosholu Golf Course opened adjacent to the existing Van Cortlandt Park course 70 It is located at the southeast end of the park 281 By the 1930s both courses were being intensively used with restaurants located near both clubhouses 254 Around this time six holes of the Van Cortlandt course were rebuilt as part of the Henry Hudson Parkway s construction 282 Due to the Major Deegan Expressway s construction in 1949 there were plans to fill in 7 acres 2 8 ha of the nearby marshlands so new holes could be built A third of the way into the filling in project conservationists and residents called for the rest of the marsh to be preserved 283 Two greens were eventually placed on the filled in marshland 284 In 2002 a First Tee course for young golfers opened at the Mosholu course 285 The Van Cortlandt Golf Course and its attached clubhouse were renovated from 2007 to 2014 for 5 million Prior to the renovation there was poor management dirty grounds and a proliferation of prostitutes and drug dealers operating much too close for comfort plagued the grounds 286 The renovation overhauled the course with such improvements as seven new greens and a new drainage system The clubhouse received an infusion of historic golf artifacts from NYC Parks including vintage photographs and an exhibit about the history of the golf ball 286 Running edit Van Cortlandt Park is a popular site for cross country running owing to its miles of cinder trails and hills as well as its steep terrain One legend has it that a cross country coach thought that Van Cortlandt Park s tracks were too hard and instead went to the New Jersey Meadowlands to train 257 Its courses are some of the most utilized cross country courses in the United States 257 nbsp View of the Parade Ground from the starting line of the cross country courseAround the Parade Ground known to runners as the flats there is a track that circles for 1 5 miles 2 4 km 287 Another 1 25 mile 2 01 km rubber trail and the 3 1 mile 5 0 km cross country trail supplement each other between 241st Street and the city border 288 Runners on the cross country course typically run 6 2 miles 10 0 km 38 They start at the Parade Ground and passing through the cowpath the runners bridge Cemetery Hill and the back hills 257 using the back hills to turn back at the city border 38 This trail built in 1913 out of parts of existing trails 289 was renovated in 1997 for 2 million receiving a new layer of asphalt and stone to cover a tangle of muddy ruts and jutting roots and rocks that were breaking runners ankles 257 289 However by 2013 the trail was starting to show signs of deterioration 257 The park is used for the Northeast regional championships of the Foot Locker Cross Country Championships 290 The cross country trail is used for the Manhattan College Invitational one of the largest high school cross country meets in the nation 257 In 2006 the USA Cross Country Championships were held at Van Cortlandt and organized by USATF and New York Road Runners 291 The tracks are used not only by local high schools 289 but also for many college races 292 It is the home course for Fordham University Iona College New York University and Manhattan College located across the street The college course is five miles 8 0 km long crossing the Henry Hudson Parkway at one point 293 This course was renovated in 1997 for almost 1 million 257 The 1968 and 1969 NCAA Men s Division I Cross Country Championship was hosted by Manhattan College at the park The events were attended by about 10 000 people and the championship race was 6 miles 9 7 km long In addition Van Cortlandt is the venue for the annual IC4A or Intercollegiate Association of Amateur Athletes of America ICAAAA cross country championships 292 City s only Canadian football game edit On December 11 1909 the Hamilton Tigers and the Ottawa Rough Riders later of the Canadian Football League played an exhibition game at Van Cortlandt Park Sponsored by the New York Herald the game garnered between 5 000 294 and 30 000 295 spectators as Hamilton defeated Ottawa 11 6 294 The Canadian Football League s influence in the U S did not change after the match and no subsequent exhibition games were played in the city However it was notable for being the first elite Canadian football game to be played in the U S 296 Management editBefore 1992 there was no private maintenance of the park The earliest efforts for such a thing date to 1983 when an administrator was appointed to oversee both Van Cortlandt and Pelham Bay Parks 297 298 Though NYC Parks owns and operates the park until 2019 maintenance was handled by two separate nonprofit organizations Van Cortlandt Park Conservancy a private nonprofit organization founded in 2009 managed educational and cultural programs and maintains the recreational areas 299 The Friends of Van Cortlandt Park an independent nonprofit established in 1992 300 provided educational programs and assists in the upkeep of the park s natural areas 301 However the two organizations have not had the same amount of funding as similar private organizations who manage parks in wealthier areas of the city In 2013 Friends of Van Cortlandt Park only raised 416 612 as opposed to the Central Park Conservancy which in 2016 had an 81 million endowment to maintain Central Park or the Four Freedoms Parks Conservancy which raised 8 million in 2011 alone for the construction of the Four Freedoms Park 297 In 2019 it was announced that the two organizations would merge that June The combined organization the Van Cortlandt Park Alliance would continue the programming and activities offered by the two organizations 302 Transportation editRoads edit nbsp Map Early in the park s history there were calls for a direct route between Woodlawn and Riverdale Property owners in Woodlawn were calling for such a route by 1893 303 A preliminary plan for the road was submitted to NYC Parks in 1894 304 The Woodland Path built in the late 1890s was linked in 1902 to a new 2 100 foot 640 m path on the Van Cortlandt Golf Course s eastern perimeter that stretched east to Jerome Avenue 305 Another road was built in 1902 extending 5 960 feet 1 820 m north from West Gun Hill Road to the city line on the park s north side later Mosholu Avenue now Mosholu Parkway 305 It was completed and planted with trees in 1905 306 A third 1 800 foot long 550 m road linked Jerome Avenue and East 237th Street to give Woodlawn residents direct access to Jerome Avenue Line streetcars 305 There were also preparations for a fourth road which would run north from Mosholu Avenue and then fork into two roads before entering Yonkers 307 This fourth road a driveway called Rockwood Drive that ran from Mosholu Avenue to the city line at Yonkers was completed in 1903 An additional spur from Rockwood Drive diverged from the intersection with Mosholu Avenue terminating at the train station 308 A pedestrian passage from Jerome Avenue to Gun Hill Road opened in 1905 also allowed more direct access into the park from Jerome Avenue 306 These roads allowed park visitors to access more of the park via automobile but also had the effect of separating existing amenities such as the golf course and Parade Ground from each other 93 By 1906 increased automotive traffic necessitated the widening of Grand Avenue which adjoined the golf course 309 A year later in 1907 NYC Parks wanted permission to build a road from the Yonkers shuttle s Caryl Station to Broadway in order to alleviate traffic there 310 In addition Rockwood Drive needed to be rebuilt 311 There was also a third proposal to pave a trail along the Old Croton aqueduct which had already received a coating of fill from the Jerome Park Reservoir five years beforehand 310 The New York City Board of Estimate received a proposal to connect Manhattan s Riverside Drive to the park in 1909 providing a direct route to the Upper West Side along what is now the Henry Hudson Parkway 312 No new roads were built until 1929 313 In the NYC Parks annual report for 1912 it was noted that the park s roads stood the strain well but that constant maintenance was needed to keep the roads in good shape 203 In 1929 Bronx Borough President Harry Bruckner put forth plans for the Grand Concourse to be extended through the park as part of a proposed parkway system 314 315 The extension would go under Van Cortlandt Avenue Jerome Avenue and Gun Hill Road going around Mosholu Avenue before taking the route of the Old Croton Aqueduct until it reached East 233rd Street It would then turn northwest along Mosholu Avenue crossing Tibbetts Brook and the Putnam Division before ending at the Saw Mill River Parkway 316 There was pushback from the New York Park Association the Regional Plan of New York environmentalists city planners and other figures such as former senator Nathan Straus Jr These parties opinions on the proposed extension ranged from rerouting it elsewhere to canceling it completely 315 317 318 The New York State Legislature passed a law that would allow the Grand Concourse to be extended through the park 319 Following this there were calls for Governor Franklin D Roosevelt to veto the bill 320 321 Roosevelt vetoed the bill on April 17 1929 322 However there were some influential supporters of the bill including the Bronx Board of Trade and the Bronx Chamber of Commerce 323 In 1931 they managed to get the extension built albeit with a reduction in width from 182 to 80 feet 55 to 24 m 324 By 1934 there was a large system of interconnected bridle paths along trails and park roads One bridle path ran close by to the lake intersecting with Mosholu Avenue before looping around the Parade Ground and diverging in the Northwest Woods The Van Cortlandt Golf Course also had trails as did the Old Croton Aqueduct and near Jerome Avenue and Holly Lane 325 However as the primary roads through the park such as Jerome Grand and Mosholu Avenues were constantly maintained and upgraded secondary roads fell into a state of neglect One such road was Rockwood Drive which was closed in 1936 and became a bridle path 326 nbsp The interchange of Henry Hudson Saw Mill and Mosholu Parkways in the parkHighway construction in the mid 1930s further altered the park 327 The first of these proposals was the Grand Concourse Extension later the Mosholu Parkway Extension which was already being paved in 1934 when Robert Moses became Parks Commissioner 328 Moses immediately started planning for the Henry Hudson Parkway which was originally envisioned as an extension of Riverside Drive 118 As proposed the parkway would have only skirted the park s northwest corner in order to connect with the Saw Mill River Parkway in Westchester 329 327 However due to that plan s high cost the route was amended 327 and the Henry Hudson Parkway became an extension of the West Side Elevated Highway cutting straight through the park to intersect with the Saw Mill River Parkway 330 Unlike the Concourse extension the Henry Hudson Parkway was minimally opposed by the community as it was widely seen as an improvement 331 Work on the parkway began in 1935 332 Simultaneously work progressed on the Mosholu Parkway Extension and Mosholu Avenue within the park was being modified so that it would be bisected by Henry Hudson Parkway A bridge was constructed over the railroad in 1940 and a road linking the avenue and the new Mosholu Parkway was opened the next year 282 Mosholu Parkway was then extended to the Henry Hudson Parkway via a partial cloverleaf interchange built near the park s sole freshwater marsh 333 334 When biology teachers who used the marsh for their classes raised concerns about construction an assistant to Moses said that the marsh would get a landscaping so that it looked like a series of lagoons surrounded by shrubbery 333 World War II halted all highway construction By the time the war ended Moses had become a Construction Coordinator for the city and in 1947 proposed the Major Deegan Expressway through the park 335 Since community leaders had some objections to the proposal Moses held a public hearing to discuss it 336 337 Opponents of the plan stated that the expressway would carry heavy truck traffic as opposed to the existing parkways where trucks were banned 338 In response Moses promised to place landscaping on the new expressway so it would fit with the park s character This revised plan garnered the support of three prominent Bronx politicians 338 339 The expressway itself was widely endorsed but there were five proposed routings for the highway through Van Cortlandt Park most of which called for using the old Putnam railroad s right of way 340 The city ultimately selected Moses s plan in 1947 341 340 339 The 1 mile 1 6 km link was projected to cost 30 million at the time equivalent to 365 000 000 in 2022 341 Environmentalists protested the plan after finding out that this construction would demolish 32 acres 13 ha of the marsh Eventually all except 7 acres 2 8 ha were preserved with the remaining 7 acres set aside for the Van Cortlandt golf course see Golf 342 The Major Deegan Expressway was finally opened through the park in 1955 119 The new expressway ran along the rights of way of Grand Avenue and Mosholu Avenue causing these two roads to be demapped 339 Since then there has not been much alteration to the park s roads As of 2014 update there are five pedestrian crossings over the Major Deegan Expressway mostly in the northern section 226 A sixth bridge near 233rd Street was proposed in a 2009 feasibility study 227 However in 2014 plans to build the 7 5 million pedestrian bridge were deferred due to a lack of money 226 The next year the city announced its intent to begin building the bridge at a cost of 12 million 228 229 Former railroads edit nbsp The abandoned Putnam Railroad bridge over the Henry Hudson ParkwayThe New York City amp Northern Railroad later the Putnam Division of the New York Central Railroad was built in 1880 effectively separating the park site into two parts 59 Its two stops in the Bronx were in the park itself and at Kingsbridge to the south after Kingsbridge the railroad merged with the present day Hudson Line of the Metro North Railroad 60 The line had two tracks between the Hudson Line junction and the Van Cortlandt station north of which the tracks merged into one 343 The company foreclosed in 1887 and the line went under the control of the New York and Northern Railroad Company 344 Beginning in 1888 another railroad a 2 mile 3 2 km shuttle service operated by Yonkers Rapid Transit Railway was built to connect Kingsbridge and Yonkers It ran off the main New York and Putnam Railroad line immediately north of the Van Cortlandt station 45 There was an additional stop called Mosholu located in the northwest quadrant of the park site at Mosholu Avenue now Mosholu Parkway The Mosholu stop was designated as a request stop wherein trains only stopped upon a passenger s request 345 346 347 A railroad crossing next to the Putnam Division s Van Cortlandt Station was replaced with an underground pedestrian passageway in 1904 to allow safe pedestrian travel in the park 348 By 1942 the railroad was already seeing signs of decreased ridership there were 600 daily riders on the Yonkers branch down from 2 000 daily riders sixteen years prior The Interstate Commerce Commission gave New York Central Railroad permission to abandon the branch on November 12 1942 349 350 Subsequently riders filed a lawsuit to keep the line open and the federal lawsuit was heard by the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York who ruled in favor of the railroad on June 21 1943 351 Nine days later the railroad abandoned the line By December 1944 the rails were being removed 352 The main line also saw fewer riders as the years passed and on March B 1958 with daily ridership numbering between 400 and 500 commuters the New York State Public Service Commission gave its approval for the railroad to stop passenger service on the line The last day of service was June 1 1958 and the station was abandoned the line now only being used for freight 353 Conrail continued to operate the line for freight use though by 1979 trains only ran twice a day and hikers often utilized the underused train tracks 141 Modern mass transit edit nbsp The Van Cortlandt Park 242nd Street stationThere are two nearby New York City Subway stations 354 The eastern side of the park is served by Woodlawn 4 train and the western side by 242nd Street 1 train 355 The 242nd Street station was part of the first subway line of the Interborough Rapid Transit Company 74 running along the current IRT Broadway Seventh Avenue Line to City Hall 356 357 and later South Ferry 358 The station serving as the line s northern terminal opened in 1908 359 360 The Woodlawn station was built later as part of the IRT Jerome Avenue Line opening in April 1918 as the line s northern terminus 361 Bus service is provided by New York City Bus s Bx9 Bx10 Bx16 and Bx34 local routes and its BxM3 and BxM4 express routes Bee Line Bus System s 1 2 3 4 20 and 21 routes also provide service to Westchester 362 In popular culture editVan Cortlandt Park appears in the Nero Wolfe detective stories by Rex Stout It is where the bodies of several murder victims are found Joan Wellman in Murder by the Book 1951 363 and Simon Jacobs in Plot It Yourself 1959 364 The park is also where the climactic scene of the 1944 novella Booby Trap takes place The guilty Congressman Shattuck kills himself with a hand grenade after Nero Wolfe convinces him there is no chance of escaping justice 365 In Sol Yurick s 1965 novel The Warriors the meeting between New York street gangs called by Ismael Rivera leader of the Delancey Thrones takes place in Van Cortlandt Park 366 In the 1979 film adaptation of Yurick s novel one of the gangs is called The Van Cortlandt Rangers 367 The park is also the place of many happy memories of Horse Badorties protagonist of William Kotzwinkle s 1974 book The Fan Man 368 In Philip Kaufman s 1979 film The Wanderers a football game between The Wanderers and rivals the Del Bombers occurs at Van Cortlandt Park However none of the scenes were filmed in the Bronx 369 Van Cortlandt Park was referenced in Jose Rivera s play Marisol as a place where neo Nazis burn homeless people alive in the apocalyptic world of the play 370 See also editList of NCAA Division I baseball venues Delaware Tribe of IndiansNotes and references editNotes edit a b c It has also been described as being the fourth largest park at 1 122 acres 454 ha if Flushing Meadows Corona Park in Queens was counted at 1 255 acres 508 ha 185 However a resurveying in 2013 concluded that Van Cortlandt Park was 1 146 acres while Flushing Meadows Corona Park was calculated at a smaller 897 acres 363 ha 186 Maintenance and upkeep is also performed by Van Cortlandt Park Alliance which is composed of the Van Cortlandt Park Conservancy and Friends of Van Cortlandt Park References edit NYC Parks Administrator s Office 1986 p 12 a b c d e f g h i Walsh Kevin March 8 2003 VAN CORTLANDT PARK Forgotten New York Archived from the original on January 8 2017 Retrieved January 10 2017 a b O Hea Anderson 1996 p 4 O Hea Anderson 1996 p 12 a b c d e f g h NYC Parks Administrator s Office 1986 p 2 a b New York City Parks Department amp Storch Associates 1986a p 36 Duffy Jennifer Nugent December 2 2013 Who s Your Paddy Racial Expectations and the Struggle for Irish American Identity NYU Press p 17 ISBN 978 0 8147 8503 4 Archived from the original on May 8 2022 Retrieved January 9 2017 a b Ferris 1897 p VIII Seymour Elsie Gansevoort 1914 New York City and the Development of Trade A Reading List New York New York Public Library p 38 Archived from the original on May 8 2022 Retrieved January 9 2017 via Google Books a b c d e f g h i j k l NYC Parks Administrator s Office 1986 p 5 Annual Report 1916 p 253 Shorto Russell 2004 The Island at the Center of the World The Epic Story of Dutch Manhattan and the Forgotten Colony that Shaped America New York NY Doubleday pp 279 281 ISBN 978 0385503495 a b c d Ferris 1897 p IX a b c d e New York City Parks Department amp Storch Associates 1986a p 38 a b c d Tibbetts Brook Van Cortlandt Park Conservancy Archived from the original on March 15 2017 Retrieved January 6 2017 Tibbetts Brook Park North PDF Ward Associates P C Archived from the original PDF on March 1 2012 Retrieved January 6 2017 a b c d New York City Parks Department 2007 p 6 a b Ferris 1897 p X Stephen Jenkins 1912 The Story of the Bronx from the Purchase Made by the Dutch from the Indians in 1639 to the Present Day G P Putnam s Sons pp 177 208 Retrieved January 2 2017 a b CULTURAL RESOURCE ASSESSMENT PROPOSED CROTON WATER TREATMENT PLANT MOSHOLU SITE VAN CORTLANDT PARK BRONX COUNTY NEW YORK PDF nyc gov Historical Perspectives Inc October 30 1998 Archived PDF from the original on December 27 2016 Retrieved January 7 2017 a b c d New York City Parks Department amp Storch Associates 1986a p 40 a b Tieck William A 1968 Riverdale Kingsbridge Spuyten Duyvil New York City A Historical Epitome of the Northwest Bronx Fleming H Revell Co p 25 Archived from the original on January 13 2017 Retrieved January 12 2017 a b c Kadinsky Sergey 2016 Hidden Waters of New York City A History and Guide to 101 Forgotten Lakes Ponds Creeks and Streams in the Five Boroughs New York NY Countryman Press pp 58 59 247 249 ISBN 978 1 58157 566 8 a b Duncan Steve December 13 2013 The forgotten streams of New York The Week Archived from the original on January 3 2017 Retrieved January 2 2017 a b Bolton Reginald Pelham 1922 Indian Paths in the Great Metropolis Museum of the American Indian Heye foundation p 93 Annual Report 1916 p 253 254 a b c New York City Parks Department amp Storch Associates 1986a p 41 a b c d Jackson 2010 p 1361 a b c d Van Cortlandt Park Highlights Vault Hill NYC Parks Archived from the original on January 10 2017 Retrieved January 10 2017 a b c d e Pollak Michael October 30 2005 A Vault of History The New York Times ISSN 0362 4331 Archived from the original on September 17 2017 Retrieved January 10 2017 New York City Parks Department amp Storch Associates 1986a pp 32 42 New York City Parks Department amp Storch Associates 1986a p 42 Clark William Bell ed Naval Documents of The American Revolution VOLUME I American Theatre Dec 1 1774 Sept 2 1775 European Theatre Dec 6 1774 Aug 9 1775 Washington D C U S Government Printing Office p 572 Collections of the New York Historical Society for the Year 1883 New York New York Historical Society 1883 pp 99 405 407 a b c Cantwell Anne Marie E Wall Diana diZerega 2003 Unearthing Gotham The Archaeology of New York City Yale University Press p 264 ISBN 0 300 09799 9 Archived from the original on April 17 2022 Retrieved January 9 2017 The History of Van Cortlandt House and Museum Van Cortlandt House Museum Archived from the original on January 12 2017 Retrieved January 10 2017 Jackson 2010 pp 1361 1362 a b c d e NYC Parks Administrator s Office 1986 p 13 a b New York City Parks Department amp Storch Associates 1986a p 44 a b c Indian Field New York City Department of Parks amp Recreation Archived from the original on May 16 2008 Retrieved September 30 2016 a b Jervis John Bloomfield December 1 1971 FitzSimons Neal ed The Reminiscences of John B Jervis Engineer of the Old Croton 1st ed Syracuse Syracuse University Press pp 119 120 ISBN 978 0 8156 0077 0 a b Weidner Charles H 1974 Water for a city A history of New York City s problem from the beginning to the Delaware River system ist ed Rutgers University Press pp 38 39 ISBN 978 0 8135 0672 2 a b c d Old Croton Aqueduct State Historic Park www nysparks com Archived from the original on January 9 2017 Retrieved January 8 2017 a b Old Croton Aqueduct Trail NYC Parks Archived from the original on January 8 2017 Retrieved January 8 2017 a b c d New York City Parks Department amp Storch Associates 1986a p 46 Smith James Reuel 1938 Springs and Wells of Manhattan and the Bronx New York City at the End of the Nineteenth Century 1st ed The New York Historical Society p 229 Archived from the original on January 16 2017 Retrieved January 13 2017 D Alvia Mary Josephine 1976 The History of the New Croton Dam 1st ed Published by the author pp 59 60 ISBN 978 1 135 79783 6 Archived from the original on January 16 2017 Retrieved January 13 2017 a b c Dechillo Suzanne February 20 1987 Old Croton Aqueduct For Walkers Not Water The New York Times ISSN 0362 4331 Archived from the original on January 9 2017 Retrieved January 8 2017 New York City Parks Department 2014 p 6 Van Cortlandt Park Master Plan New York City Parks Department Archived from the original on January 8 2017 Retrieved January 8 2017 Gonzalez 2004 p 49 THE NEED OF MORE PARKS FIRST MEETING OF THE NEW YORK PARK ASSOCIATION YESTERDAY PDF The New York Times November 27 1881 ISSN 0362 4331 Archived PDF from the original on September 24 2021 Retrieved October 4 2017 NYC Parks Administrator s Office 1986 p 3 The Albany Legislators PDF The New York Times Albany New York March 25 1884 Archived PDF from the original on September 24 2021 Retrieved January 8 2017 a b New York City Parks Department amp Storch Associates 1986a p 56 Mullaly John 1887 The New Parks Beyond the Harlem With Thirty Illustrations and Map Descriptions of Scenery Nearly 4 000 Acres of Free Playground for the People New York Nabu Press pp 117 138 ISBN 978 1 141 64293 9 Gov Cleveland and the Bills The Sun June 15 1884 p 4 Retrieved November 30 2023 a b New York City Parks Department amp Storch Associates 1986a pp 57 58 a b c New York City Parks Department 2014 p 8 a b THE NY CENTRAL PUTNAM BRANCH in the Bronx Forgotten New York forgotten ny com May 3 1999 Archived from the original on January 1 2017 Retrieved January 9 2017 a b Jackson 2010 p 1362 Index to the Proceedings of the Board of Estimate and Apportionment 1889 p 177 a b The New Parade Ground PDF The New York Times August 22 1889 Archived PDF from the original on May 8 2022 Retrieved January 8 2017 a b National Guard Gossip PDF The New York Times June 8 1890 Archived PDF from the original on May 8 2022 Retrieved January 8 2017 Minutes 1894 p 59 New York N Y Board of Estimate and Apportionment 1897 Proceedings of the Board of Estimate and Apportionment of the City of New York Archived from the original on February 16 2017 Retrieved January 8 2017 a b c New York City Parks Department amp Storch Associates 1986a p 77 Minutes 1898 p 76 a b c d NYC Parks Administrator s Office 1986 p 4 a b c d e f New York City Parks Department 2014 p 9 a b c New York City Parks Department amp Storch Associates 1986a pp 27 32 Jackson 2010 p 977 a b c d e f Van Cortlandt Park Highlights Van Cortlandt Golf Course NYC Parks Archived from the original on January 13 2017 Retrieved January 11 2017 a b c Jackson 2010 p 515 a b c d New York City Parks Department amp Storch Associates 1986a p 27 New York City Parks Department amp Storch Associates 1986a p 72 a b Annual Report 1901 p 66 Annual Report 1899 p 21 a b New York City Parks Department amp Storch Associates 1986a p 87 Annual Report 1902b pp 74 75 Pollak Michael May 8 2005 Lost and Found Lamp The New York Times ISSN 0362 4331 Archived from the original on August 11 2017 Retrieved February 9 2017 Van Cortlandt Park Forgotten New York Archived from the original on May 29 2010 Retrieved January 27 2009 Parade Ground NYC Parks Archived from the original on January 9 2017 Retrieved January 9 2017 Annual Report 1902b p 76 Annual Report 1903 p 71 a b Annual Report 1903 p 72 a b c d e f NYC Parks Administrator s Office 1986 p 6 Annual Report 1904 p 104 105 a b New York City Parks Department amp Storch Associates 1986a p 78 Mary Haldine to Samuel Parsons May 11 1906 Office of Landscape Architect Letters Sent 1902 1918 Incomplete 5 volumes Department of Parks New York City Municipal Archives Annual Report 1909 p 50 a b Annual Report 1911 p 126 a b c d New York City Parks Department amp Storch Associates 1986a p 92 Annual Report 1906 p 99 NYC Parks Administrator s Office 1986 p 13 14 a b c d New York City Parks Department amp Storch Associates 1986b p 94 a b c d Propose Public Bathing Pool in Van Cortlandt New York Evening Telegram May 17 1907 Archived from the original on May 8 2022 Retrieved January 8 2017 via Fultonhistory com a b To Drain Tibbett s Brook Yonkers Statesman September 9 1907 Archived from the original on May 8 2022 Retrieved January 8 2017 via Fultonhistory com Message of the Mayor to the Common Council of the City of New York New York City of New York 1905 p 195 Archived from the original on May 8 2022 Retrieved January 10 2017 That Monster Sewer Yonkers Statesman March 13 1908 Archived from the original on May 8 2022 Retrieved January 8 2017 via Fultonhistory com a b NYC Parks Administrator s Office 1986 p 8 New York City Parks Department amp Storch Associates 1986b pp 93 95 TIBBETT GARDENS PHASE 1A ARCHAEOLOGICAL ASSESSMENT REPORT PDF New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission Historical Perspectives January 30 1987 Archived PDF from the original on December 23 2016 Retrieved January 2 2017 Sanderson Eric W Fisher Kim Giampieri Mario McKibben Fiona January 10 2014 Welikia West Bronx An analysis of the historical streams and wetlands between the Harlem and Hudson Rivers and the Bronx River New York City with recommendations for restoration PDF Wildlife Conservation Society Archived PDF from the original on January 7 2017 Retrieved January 7 2017 Shorto Russell 2005 The Island At The Center Of The World The Epic Story Of Dutch Manhattan And The Forgotten Colony That Shaped America Vintage Books p 196 ISBN 978 1 4000 7867 7 Archived from the original on April 17 2022 Retrieved January 9 2017 a b c NYC Parks Administrator s Office 1986 p 7 a b Annual Report 1914c p 212 a b New York City Parks Department amp Storch Associates 1986a p 71 Joseph Hennessy to Mayor Gaynor May 27 1912 Departmental Correspondence Received Parks Department Papers of William J Gaynor 1910 1913 New York City Municipal Archives Joseph Hennessy to Mayor Walker March 19 1926 Departmental Correspondence Received Parks Department 1926 Papers of James J Walker New York City Municipal Archives a b New York City Parks Department amp Storch Associates 1986a p 79 Van Cortlandt Park is Selected for Cross Country Championship North Side News November 9 1915 p 4 Annual Report 1921 p 17 18 Annual Report 1922 p 17 Caro 1974 pp 502 503 New York City Parks Department amp Storch Associates 1986b p 96 New York City Parks Department amp Storch Associates 1986b pp 96 97 a b Caro 1974 p 534 a b c d NYC Parks Administrator s Office 1986 p 15 a b c d e f g New York City Parks Department 2014 p 10 a b New York City Parks Department amp Storch Associates 1986b p 110 Caro 1974 pp 544 565 a b c d New York City Parks Department amp Storch Associates 1986b p 122 a b MOSES DEDICATES 22 ACRE PLAYSITE Area Once Swampland Near Van Cortlandt Park Opened by Park Commissioner HE PRAISES WPA WORKERS Morris Somervell and Lyons Also Speak Contest Are Held on Athletic Field PDF The New York Times September 23 1939 ISSN 0362 4331 Archived from the original on May 8 2022 Retrieved January 10 2017 New York City Parks Department amp Storch Associates 1986b pp 106 107 New York City Parks Department amp Storch Associates 1986b p 109 SIX MOTHERS SPARED JAIL But Get Scolding in Court After Babies Dig Park Sod PDF The New York Times May 23 1942 Archived from the original on May 8 2022 Retrieved September 20 2017 PLANE IN PARK COSTS 50 Elevator Operator a Student Pilot Fined After Landing PDF The New York Times January 30 1947 Archived from the original on May 8 2022 Retrieved September 20 2017 Box 2639 Parks 1937 1938 1939 1941 LaGuardia Personnel Papers New York City Municipal Archives New York City Parks Department amp Storch Associates 1986b pp 99 100 a b c Van Cortlandt Park Tibbetts Brook New York City Parks Department Archived from the original on January 3 2017 Retrieved January 2 2017 Devlin John C May 8 1961 MYSTERY AILMENT KILLS BRONX FISH Thousands Dead and Dying in Van Cortlandt Lake PDF The New York Times Archived from the original on May 8 2022 Retrieved January 8 2017 Silt From Heavy Rains Blamed for Fish Deaths PDF The New York Times May 10 1961 ISSN 0362 4331 Archived from the original on May 8 2022 Retrieved January 12 2017 Phillips Mccandlish May 19 1964 FISH SUFFOCATING IN VAN CORTLANDT The New York Times ISSN 0362 4331 Archived from the original on September 17 2017 Retrieved January 12 2017 a b Phillips Mccandlish May 20 1964 CITY SLEUTHS SEEK CAUSE OF FISH KILL Mobile Laboratory Goes to Van Cortlandt Park to Test Water Samples PDF The New York Times ISSN 0362 4331 Archived from the original on May 8 2022 Retrieved January 12 2017 a b c New York City Parks Department amp Storch Associates 1986a p 8 New York City Parks Department amp Storch Associates 1986b pp 122 124 a b c Van Cortlandt Park s Future The Eisland Plan PDF Riverdale Press November 29 1979 p 28 Archived PDF from the original on May 8 2022 Retrieved June 20 2018 via Fultonhistory com a b New York City Parks Department amp Storch Associates 1986b p 119 Sprayed On Snow Enables the Van Cortlandt Park Ski Area to Open Van Cortlaridt Park Ski Season Gets Under Way With Sitzmark The New York Times December 12 1964 Archived from the original on June 20 2018 Retrieved June 20 2018 a b New York City Parks Department amp Storch Associates 1986b p 114 New York City Parks Department amp Storch Associates 1986b p 115 Day Leslie May 10 2013 Field Guide to the Natural World of New York City JHU Press ISBN 978 1 4214 1149 1 Archived from the original on March 21 2017 Retrieved January 9 2017 New York City Parks Department amp Storch Associates 1986b pp 125 126 City seeks liquid assets to restore Vannie Lake PDF Riverdale Press March 6 1980 p 13 Archived PDF from the original on May 8 2022 Retrieved June 20 2018 via Fultonhistory com Broitman Mark July 31 1980 Help for park lake so near and yet so far PDF Riverdale Press p 1 Retrieved June 20 2018 via Fultonhistory com New York City Parks Department amp Storch Associates 1986b pp 124 Stein Bernard August 8 1980 Powerful ally joins crusade to restore lake but Van Cortlandt light controversy grows PDF Riverdale Press p 1 Retrieved June 20 2018 via Fultonhistory com a b c Goldman John J August 20 1985 Deteriorated During Fiscal Crisis in 70s N Y Public Golf Courses Back Up to Par Los Angeles Times ISSN 0458 3035 Archived from the original on January 10 2017 Retrieved January 9 2017 Tremont Burt August 3 2016 A golfing adventure in Gotham Amenia NY Harlem Valley Times Retrieved January 13 2017 New York City Parks Department amp Storch Associates 1986b p 121 Letters to The Times The New York Times October 1 1962 Archived from the original on June 20 2018 Retrieved June 20 2018 New York City Parks Department amp Storch Associates 1986b p 116 Fraser C Gerald June 21 1976 Yanks Shut Out the Met Butterfly Moves to Park The New York Times Archived from the original on June 20 2018 Retrieved June 20 2018 Met brings Rigoletto to Vannie PDF Riverdale Press June 19 1980 p 15 Retrieved June 20 2018 via Fultonhistory com Baum Edward August 14 1980 Symphony in tune for park concert PDF Riverdale Press p 16 Retrieved June 20 2018 via Fultonhistory com New York City Parks Department amp Storch Associates 1986b pp 117 118 a b Joggers Get Parcourse PDF Riverdale Press October 26 1978 p 1 Retrieved June 20 2018 via Fultonhistory com New York City Parks Department amp Storch Associates 1986b p 118 New York City Parks Department amp Storch Associates 1986a p 23 New York City Parks Department amp Storch Associates 1986b p 125 Boro Wide Committee Launches Drive to Save Van Cortlandt PDF Riverdale Press November 3 1977 p 5 Retrieved June 20 2018 via Fultonhistory com Pedulla Tom July 6 1978 Friends of Van Cortlandt Charge Troubled Park Getting Worse Each Weekend PDF Riverdale Press p 1 Retrieved June 20 2018 via Fultonhistory com New York City Parks Department amp Storch Associates 1986b p 126 Diagnostic Feasibility Study for Lake Restoration Van Cortlandt Lake Van Cortlandt Park Borough of Bronx New York National Technical Reports Library 1985 Archived from the original on January 9 2017 Retrieved January 9 2017 a b New York City Parks Department 2014 p 12 New York City Parks Department 2014 p 11 Natural Area Mapping and Inventory of Van Cortlandt Park January 1988 Survey PDF nycgovparks org New York City Department of Parks and Recreation January 1988 Archived PDF from the original on May 6 2016 Retrieved January 9 2017 New York City Parks Department 2014 p 1 Bankoff H Arthur Winter Frederick A Ricciardi Christopher Archaeological Excavations at Van Cortlandt Park The Bronx 1990 1992 PDF nyc gov Archived PDF from the original on December 23 2016 Retrieved January 9 2017 Schneider Steve March 22 1993 Grounds for Battle Indian site in park in dispute Newsday p 23 ISSN 2574 5298 ProQuest 278590874 Radomsky Rosalie R September 11 1994 Neighborhood Report Van Cortlandt Historians Cry Fault Over Tennis Court Proposal The New York Times ISSN 0362 4331 Retrieved November 27 2023 Neighborhood Report Bronx Update The New York Times January 8 1995 ISSN 0362 4331 Retrieved November 27 2023 a b Croton Water Filtration Plant Activated New York City Department of Environmental Protection NYCDEP May 8 2015 Press release Archived from the original on October 26 2021 Retrieved April 10 2022 United States And State Of New York Announce Start Up Of Croton Water Filtration Plant In Compliance With Mandates Of Federal Consent Decree U S Attorney s Office Eastern District of New York May 8 2015 Press release Archived from the original on December 29 2021 Retrieved April 10 2022 Rohde David May 20 1998 Pressed by U S City Hall Agrees To Build a Plant to Filter Water The New York Times Archived from the original on January 10 2017 Retrieved February 20 2017 Martin Douglas December 2 1998 Filtration Plant Is Placed Within Van Cortlandt 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9 2017 Retrieved January 8 2017 Cohen Jason September 17 2020 Parks Department announces 42 6 million in improvements to Bronx parks Bronx Times Archived from the original on October 27 2020 Retrieved September 18 2020 NYC Parks breaks ground on 1M Van Cortlandt Park playground renovation Bronx Times Bronx Times December 6 2021 Retrieved October 3 2022 City kills long planned bridge over Major Deegan in the Bronx s Van Cortlandt Park Gothamist March 16 2023 Retrieved March 20 2023 Jackson 2010 pp 978 1361 a b Foderaro Lisa W May 31 2013 How Big Is That Park City Now Has the Answer The New York Times Archived from the original on June 1 2013 Retrieved May 31 2013 Jackson 2010 p 978 Frequently Asked Questions New York City Department of Parks amp Recreation Archived from the original on February 20 2017 Retrieved February 19 2017 a b c Van Cortlandt Park New York City Department of Parks amp Recreation Archived from the original on October 1 2016 Retrieved September 30 2016 Jackson 2010 p 502 Schuberth Christopher J 1968 The geology of New York City and environs 1st ed Published for the American Museum of Natural History by Natural History Press pp 43 97 Archived from the original on January 16 2017 Retrieved January 13 2017 a b Van Cortlandt Lake New York State Department of Environmental Conservation Archived from the original on January 10 2017 Retrieved January 10 2017 Van Cortlandt Park Fishing NYC Parks Archived from the original on January 10 2017 Retrieved January 10 2017 Best Fishing Spots In New York City CBS New York May 26 2012 Archived from the original on January 10 2017 Retrieved January 10 2017 Edsall Thomas Henry 1887 History of the Town of Kings Bridge Now Part of the 24th Ward of New York City PDF Privately printed Archived PDF from the original on January 7 2017 Retrieved January 4 2017 Daylight Tibbetts Brook PDF Archived PDF from the original on February 21 2016 Retrieved January 5 2017 New York City Parks Department 2014 p 3 Ferris 1897 p XX Annual Report 1902b p 74 Minutes 1893 p 337 a b c d e New York City Parks Department amp Storch Associates 1986b p 93 Annual Report 1906 p 88 a b Annual Report 1912b p 140 Taxpayers Association Meeting New York Advance and Westchester Gazette December 26 1896 p 1 Annual Report 1899 p 26 Henry C Schrader to George B McClellan June 25 1905 Departmental Correspondence Received Parks Department 1905 Papers of George B McClellan New York City Municipal Archives Annual Report 1906 pp 91 93 Big Athletic Field to Replace Swamp New York Sun Fultonhistory com December 3 1916 p 5 Retrieved September 16 2017 Minutes 1917 p 5 Annual Report 1922 pp 16 17 Annual Report 1899 p 23 A Perfect Setting for the Sport of Kings Bronx Home News February 7 1934 p 1 a b Van Cortlandt Park Highlights Van Cortlandt Park the Wetlands of New York City NYC Parks Archived from the original on January 13 2017 Retrieved January 10 2017 Letcher Butler Lorine May 16 1937 SPRING LIFE OF A MARSH Birds and Flowers of Park Swamp Are Observed By the Hiker Home of the Yellowthroat Gay Insect Life PDF The New York Times ISSN 0362 4331 Retrieved September 20 2017 Buckley P A Sedwitz W Norse W J Kieran J 2018 Urban Ornithology 150 Years of Birds in New York City Cornell University Press p 35 ISBN 978 1 5017 1962 2 Archived from the original on October 14 2021 Retrieved February 5 2019 Natural Areas Van Cortlandt Park Conservancy Archived from the original on December 21 2019 Retrieved December 21 2019 a b c d e f Van Cortlandt Park Hiking Trails NYC Parks Archived from the original on January 9 2017 Retrieved January 8 2017 New York New Jersey Trail Conference 2009 p 9 10 Putnam Trail Van Cortlandt Park Conservancy Archived from the original on January 7 2017 Retrieved January 8 2017 Van Cortlandt Park Putnam Greenway Construction NYC Parks www nycgovparks org Archived from the original on September 3 2018 Retrieved October 23 2020 a b c d e f g Yarrow Andrew L July 31 1987 METROPOLITAN BAEDEKER The Bucolic Pleasures Of Van Cortlandt Park The New York Times Archived from the original on January 10 2017 Retrieved January 9 2017 Putnam Greenway Van Cortlandt Park Project Overview and Plans New York City Department of Parks amp Recreation Archived from the original on September 3 2018 Retrieved September 3 2018 Van Cortlandt Park Putnam Greenway Construction New York City Department of Parks amp Recreation Archived from the original on September 19 2019 Retrieved October 17 2019 Parks officials poised to pave Putnam Trail Riverdale Press November 25 2018 Archived from the original on November 28 2018 Retrieved November 27 2018 a b c d e New York New Jersey Trail Conference 2009 p 3 a b c d Foderaro Lisa W March 31 2014 Pedestrian Bridge in Van Cortlandt Park Has an Obstacle 7 5 Million The New York Times ISSN 0362 4331 Archived from the original on August 30 2017 Retrieved January 15 2017 a b Draft Final Report Van Cortlandt Park Pedestrian Bridge Feasibility Study Part 1 PDF nyc gov Government of New York City 2009 Archived PDF from the original on February 15 2017 Retrieved January 15 2017 Draft Final Report Van Cortlandt Park Pedestrian Bridge Feasibility Study Part 2 PDF nyc gov Government of New York City 2009 Archived PDF from the original on February 8 2017 Retrieved January 15 2017 a b City Announces Plans to Construct New Pedestrian Bridge Over Major Deegan nyc gov May 8 2015 Archived from the original on August 30 2017 Retrieved August 29 2017 a b Rocchio Patrick May 17 2015 12 million pedestrian bridge in Van Cortlandt Park to be built Bronx Times Archived from the original on August 30 2017 Retrieved August 29 2017 Van Cortlandt Park Highlights The John Kieran Nature Trail NYC Parks Archived from the original on January 8 2017 Retrieved January 8 2017 a b Daily What 13 Stone Pillars in Van Cortlandt Park Were Tests For Grand Central Terminal Facade Untapped Cities November 7 2013 Archived from the original on January 9 2017 Retrieved January 8 2017 a b John Muir Trail Van Cortlandt Park Conservancy Archived from the original on March 15 2017 Retrieved January 9 2017 Stumpf Melisa October 16 2015 Fall guide Top 5 hiking trails in NYC NY Daily News Archived from the original on July 16 2017 Retrieved January 9 2017 Cass Gallagher Nature Trail Van Cortlandt Park Conservancy Archived from the original on March 15 2017 Retrieved January 9 2017 Mosholu Pelham Greenway www traillink com New York Trails Archived from the original on January 8 2017 Retrieved January 8 2017 East Coast Greenway New York PDF East Coast Greenway April 2008 Archived from the original PDF on May 11 2013 Retrieved January 10 2017 a b c Van Cortlandt House Museum NYC Parks Archived from the original on January 9 2017 Retrieved January 8 2017 Nevius James The 20 Oldest Buildings in New York City Curbed NY Archived from the original on February 11 2017 Retrieved February 9 2017 The Historic House Trust of New York City Van Cortlandt House Archived from the original on 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h Hu Winnie October 24 2013 Fighting for a Hallowed and Grueling Ground The New York Times ISSN 0362 4331 Archived from the original on January 8 2017 Retrieved January 13 2017 Van Cortlandt Park Cricket Fields NYC Parks Archived from the original on January 10 2017 Retrieved January 9 2017 Tokio View of San Francisco Riots LOOK FOR NEW OCEAN RECORD May Be Made by New German Liner Cecille Miniature Speed Tests NEW PARK SWIMMING POOL It Will Serve to Wipe Out a Van Cortlandt Park Swamp PDF The New York Times May 27 1907 ISSN 0362 4331 Retrieved January 10 2017 a b History of Parks Swimming Pools NYC Parks Archived from the original on January 13 2017 Retrieved January 10 2017 Foderaro Lisa W September 4 2014 On Schedule Pools Workers Drain the Last Drops of Summer The New York Times ISSN 0362 4331 Archived from the original on June 1 2016 Retrieved January 10 2017 WPA Division of Operations Project Folders OP 665 97 2 438 WP 18 Parks Bronx microfilm reel 8431 National Archives New York City Parks Department amp Storch Associates 1986b pp 106 a b Van Cortlandt Park Van Cortlandt Stadium New York City Parks Department Archived from the original on January 7 2017 Retrieved January 6 2017 Van Cortlandt Park gojaspers com Archived from the original on July 11 2011 Retrieved November 15 2009 Baseball to Play 2015 Home Games at Dutchess Stadium GoJaspers com Archived from the original on January 18 2017 Retrieved January 14 2017 Manhattan College Athletics Manhattan College Athletics June 24 2020 Archived from the original on April 22 2021 Retrieved April 22 2021 Horseback Riding Trails NYC Parks Archived from the original on March 3 2017 Retrieved January 11 2017 The Riverdale Stables Riverdale Stables Archived from the original on January 13 2017 Retrieved January 11 2017 Jackson 2010 p 1227 New York City Parks Department amp Storch Associates 1986a pp 79 80 Van Cortlandt Park Highlights Indian Field NYC Parks Archived from the original on May 16 2008 Retrieved January 10 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Guide to Golf Van Cortlandt Course Like Seeing An Old Friend PDF Riverdale Press August 16 1979 p 13 Retrieved June 20 2018 via Fultonhistory com Brown Clifton June 6 2002 GOLF Youngsters Can Tee It Up At Mosholu in the Bronx The New York Times Archived from the original on January 16 2017 Retrieved January 15 2017 a b Boryga Andrew April 27 2014 After 7 Year Makeover Bronx Links of Legend Try to Reclaim the Past The New York Times Archived from the original on June 26 2016 Retrieved January 15 2017 Parade Ground Van Cortlandt Park Conservancy Archived from the original on March 15 2017 Retrieved January 9 2017 Van Cortlandt Park Running Tracks NYC Parks Archived from the original on January 13 2017 Retrieved January 11 2017 a b c Stewart Barbara November 9 1997 NEIGHBORHOOD REPORT VAN CORTLANDT Trail Is Back in the Running The New York Times ISSN 0362 4331 Archived from the original on January 16 2017 Retrieved January 13 2017 Foot Locker Cross Country www footlockercc com Archived 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of Professional Sports Leagues Lulu com p 66 ISBN 978 1 4116 5860 8 Retrieved October 23 2017 a b Laskow Sarah June 30 2014 What donors do for some city parks Politico PRO Archived from the original on January 13 2017 Retrieved January 10 2017 Carmody Deirdre December 24 1983 ADMINISTRATOR IS NAMED FOR 2 LARGE CITY PARKS The New York Times ISSN 0362 4331 Archived from the original on January 13 2017 Retrieved January 10 2017 Van Cortlandt Park Conservancy History www vcpark org Archived from the original on March 15 2017 Retrieved January 10 2017 Pedulla Tom October 12 1978 Friends of Van Cortlandt Evaluate Initial Campaign PDF Riverdale Press p 3 Retrieved June 20 2018 via Fultonhistory com About Friends of Van Cortlandt Park Friends of Van Cortlandt Park Archived from the original on December 31 2016 Retrieved January 10 2017 Pending parks merger prompts departures The Riverdale Press January 27 2019 Archived from the original on May 18 2019 Retrieved May 18 2019 Minutes 1893 p 128 Minutes 1894 p 318 357 a b c Annual Report 1902b p 77 78 a b Annual Report 1905 p 96 Annual Report 1902b p 77 Annual Report 1903 pp 70 71 Annual Report 1906 p 93 a b Proposed Improvements For the Year 1907 For Which Bonds Should Be Issued Departmental Correspondence Received Parks Department 1907 Papers of George B McClellan New York City Municipal Archives Annual Report 1907 p 89 For New Auto Highway Bronx Home News September 30 1909 p 1 New York City Parks Department amp Storch Associates 1986a p 82 BRUCKNER VISIONS FINEST DRIVEWAY Landscaping a Major Part of Concourse Extension Plan He Shows All Land Is in Park Area Provide Promenade for Pedestrians PDF The New York Times March 31 1929 ISSN 0362 4331 Retrieved January 15 2017 a b BRUCKNER DEFENDS CONCOURSE PROJECT Finds Critics Unduly Alarmed on Proposal for Van Cortlandt Road PDF The New York Times March 30 1929 ISSN 0362 4331 Retrieved January 15 2017 New York City Parks Department amp Storch Associates 1986a p 86 Former Senator Straus Terms Extension of Concourse Through Park Ill Considered Bronx Home News March 17 1929 p 4 Civic and Art Bodies Protest Use of Park Land for Concourse Extension Bronx Home News March 20 1929 p 1 Bill Providing Use of Park Land in Plan To Extend Concourse South Wins Official Favor Bronx Home News March 8 1929 p 1 PROTEST EXTENSION OF STREET IN PARK Organizations Ask Roosevelt to Defer Approval of Bill for Van Cortlandt Roadway PUBLIC HEARING SOUGHT Regional Plan Says Grand Concourse Project Would Sacrifice 50 Acres Cost Assailed PDF The New York Times March 29 1929 ISSN 0362 4331 Retrieved January 15 2017 STRAUS URGES VETO OF CONCOURSE BILL On Behalf of Park Body He Tells Governor Project of Bruckner Is Invasion SUGGESTS ALTERNATE PLAN Link to Jerome Avenue Instead of Road Through Van Cortlandt Park Is Called Cheaper Favors Jerome Avenue Link See No Regard for Park Wants Park Department to Act STRAUS URGES VETO OF CONCOURSE BILL PDF The New York Times March 31 1929 ISSN 0362 4331 Retrieved January 15 2017 Governor Kills Measure for Extension of Concourse Through Van Cortlandt Park Bronx Home News April 17 1929 p 1 Governor Kills Measure Bronx Home News April 17 1929 p 1 Thomas J Donlan to John P O Brien January 16 1933 Departmental Correspondence Received Parks Bronx Papers of John P O Brien New York City Municipal Archives New York City Parks Department amp Storch Associates 1986a p 80 New York City Parks Department amp Storch Associates 1986a pp 92 106 a b c New York City Parks Department amp Storch Associates 1986b p 100 New Bronx and Westchester Traffic Link Bronx Home News January 22 1934 p 1 Caro 1974 pp 342 537 538 Caro 1974 pp 543 544 New York City Parks Department amp Storch Associates 1986b pp 100 101 Work on Saw Mill River Parkway Bridge Extension Over Broadway to Begin Monday Bronx Home News March 30 1935 p 1 a b Caro 1974 p 544 New York City Parks Department amp Storch Associates 1986b p 101 HIGHWAY PROPOSED FOR VAN CORTLANDT Moses Plan for All Purpose Road Through Park Meets Opposition at Hearing ISAACS LEADS IN FIGHT Councilman Calls Suggested Connection to Major Deegan Expressway Scandalous PDF The New York Times June 12 1947 ISSN 0362 4331 Retrieved September 16 2017 HEARING IS URGED ON ROAD IN PARK Association s Head Is Dubious About a General Purpose Link in Van Cortlandt REQUEST GOES TO MOSES Cost of Landscaping Is Cited as a Chief Objection to the Proposal PDF The New York Times June 27 1947 ISSN 0362 4331 Retrieved September 16 2017 TRUCKWAY IN PARK WILL BE DEBATED Public Hearing in City Hall Tomorrow Scheduled for Van Cortlandt Project PDF The New York Times July 1 1947 ISSN 0362 4331 Retrieved September 16 2017 a b ROADWAY FOR PARK ASSAILED BACKED City Planning Board Reserves Decision on All Purpose Link in Van Cortlandt ACTION LIKELY IN 2 WEEKS Opponents Ask Delay in Choice of Routes Advocates Deny Trucks Would Be a Peril PDF The New York Times July 3 1947 ISSN 0362 4331 Retrieved September 16 2017 a b c New York City Parks Department amp Storch Associates 1986b p 103 a b CITY PLAN AGENCY BACKS PARK ROAD Link in Van Cortlandt Area to Westchester Throughway Favored Unanimously DEEMED BEST OF 5 PLANS Favorable Action by Board of Estimate on Proposal Regarded as Certain PDF The New York Times July 17 1947 ISSN 0362 4331 Retrieved September 16 2017 a b Aquarium Razing Stayed for Year As City Waits for U S to Rebuild It Estimate Board Rescinds Its Appropriation of 64 000 Despite Park Association Head s Plea Against Phoney Relic PDF The New York Times August 29 1947 ISSN 0362 4331 Retrieved September 16 2017 CITY WILDLIFE SAFE IN OLD HOMESTEAD Shift in Golf Course to Spare Famed Sanctuary at Lake in Van Cortlandt Park 25 ACRES WILL BE INTACT Birds and Animals Have Only to Ignore Express Highway Cutting Through Area PDF The New York Times December 11 1948 ISSN 0362 4331 Retrieved September 20 2017 Gallo amp Kramer 1981 pp 11 12 55 Gallo amp Kramer 1981 pp 13 14 Gallo amp Kramer 1981 pp 13 18 New York City Parks Department 2007 p 33 Rodriguez Vicky April 2002 WHAT S A MOSHOLU A winding stretch in the Bronx has a name with Native American origins PDF The Bronx Journal p A5 Archived PDF from the original on January 16 2017 Retrieved January 14 2017 Annual Report 1904 p 105 New York City Parks Department amp Storch Associates 1986b p 98 Gallo amp Kramer 1981 pp 29 34 Text of PUBLIC SERVICE COM N OF NEW YORK V UNITED STATES S D N Y 1944 is available from Justia Gallo amp Kramer 1981 p 51 Gallo amp Kramer 1981 pp 34 36 Subway Map PDF Metropolitan Transportation Authority September 2021 Retrieved September 17 2021 MTA Neighborhood Maps neighborhood Metropolitan Transportation Authority 2018 Retrieved October 1 2018 Walker James Blaine 1918 Fifty Years of Rapid Transit 1864 to 1917 New York N Y Law Printing pp 162 191 Retrieved November 6 2016 SUBWAY OPENING TO DAY WITH SIMPLE CEREMONY Exercises at One o Clock Public to be Admitted at Seven JOHN HAY MAY BE PRESENT Expected to Represent the Federal Government President Roosevelt Sends Letter of Regret PDF The New York Times October 27 1904 Archived PDF from the original on August 30 2021 Retrieved May 28 2017 Open Clark Street Line New Route Doubles Subway Service Between the Two Boroughs PDF The New York Times April 16 1919 p 18 Archived PDF from the original on December 17 2021 Retrieved November 6 2016 Our First Subway Completed At Last Opening of the Van Cortlandt Extension Finishes System Begun in 1900 The Job Cost 60 000 000 A Twenty Mile Ride from Brooklyn to 242d St, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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