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St Mary's Park

St Marys St, St Anns Ave, E 149 St, Jackson Ave

Bronx

Acres: 35.31

The history of St. Mary’s Park, one of the six original parks in the Bronx, spans the history of the borough from frontier era to urban development. The park site was once part of the estate of early settler Jonas Bronck (1600-43), for whom the Bronx is named. During the Revolutionary War, a group of military refugees made an encampment here. Years later these lands were held by the family of Gouverneur Morris (1752-1816), one of the authors of the U.S. Constitution. After 1857 the area was known as "Janes’ Hill" for owner Adrian Janes of Janes, Kirtland & Co. Iron Works, a local foundry that manufactured bridges for Central Park, railings for the Brooklyn Bridge, and the 8,909,200-pound dome of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C.

In 1874 New York City annexed parts of the southern Bronx (formerly lower Westchester County). Seeking to create public parks in the Bronx, journalist John Mullaly (1835-1915) founded the New York Park Association in 1881. His efforts culminated in the 1884 New Parks Act and the city’s 1888-90 purchase of lands for Van Cortlandt, Claremont, Crotona, Bronx, St. Mary’s, and Pelham Bay Parks and the Moshulu, Pelham, and Crotona Parkways. St. Mary’s Park was named for a Protestant Episcopal church that stood three blocks to the west until 1959. In 1887 Mullaly described the site of St. Mary’s Park as "isolated and alone, perfect in itself, its miniature loveliness challenging comparison with the largest and fairest of its compeers [sic]." He continued, "Its area is twenty-five acres and one-third [sic], and within that limited space all the points that constitute the charm of a public pleasure ground are to be found in abundance: wood and water, trees and shrubs, hill and valley, barren rocks and emerald meadows; and all these so disposed that one form of beauty heightens the other by contrast." Adding to nature’s design, architects arranged winding paths and roads, benches, fences, trees, shrubs, flowers, and buildings (such as a concert stand). In 1903, Parks granted the New York Central Railroad permission to lay tracks underneath the park. The line was eventually abandoned, and the 1.2 acres were annexed to the Park in 1912; another .8 acres were added in 1968.

The park led the way in the development of recreation programs in the Bronx. The borough’s first playground opened in St. Mary’s Park in 1914. At this time, the park also had a baseball diamond, two tennis courts, and a children’s farm garden. In response to rapid population growth and residential construction in the neighborhood, three additional playgrounds opened in the park in 1938-41. After World War II, Parks Commissioner Robert Moses inaugurated a city-wide recreation program to provide places to play and socialize in cold weather months. New York’s first indoor recreation center opened at St. Mary’s in 1951. Designed by the architectural firm of Brown, Lawford, and Forbes, the new building housed an indoor swimming pool, gymnasium, locker and shower rooms, and meeting rooms for classes and community programs. Beloved murals of Marvel Comics superheroes were painted in the center in the early 1970s and repainted in 1991.