Morningside Park (New York City)

Background of the plot

On the Manhattan strip of land where the park is located, Native Americans of the Harlem Plain referred to the land as Muscoota. 17th century Dutch settlers afterwards called the land Vredendal (Peaceful Dale), after a Dutch landowner acquired a large portion of the plot in 1738. Colonial forces used a road on the land to retreat during the Revolutionary War's Battle of Harlem Heights on September 16, 1776. Year later, during the War of 1812 three blockhouse fortifications were built on the land.

Original design and early stages

The park was first proposed by the Central Park Commissioners in 1867, after Andrew Haswell Green, Commissioner and Comptroller of Central Park, proposed that a park be built in Morningside Heights to avoid the expense of expanding the Manhattan street grid across difficult terrain. In 1870, the City of New York obtained jurisdiction of the property. The original design for the park, submitted by Parks Engineer-in-Chief M.A. Kellogg in 1871, was rejected by the Board of Commissioners for Public Parks. In 1872, The New York Times predicted that the planned Morningside Park "will doubtless be a favorite resort for children and invalids."

The city commissioned Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux to produce a design for the park in 1873, but the plan was shelved during the economic depression following the Panic of 1873. In 1880, Jacob Wrey Mould was hired to rework Olmsted and Vaux’s plans, with Mould redoing the promenade and the wall of masonry that lines the park along Morningside Drive. He was awarded a construction contract in 1883, although in 1886 Mould died before the work could be completed. While construction was ongoing, in 1885, police captured 16 cows illegally grazing in the park, and local dairymen were often fined for pasturing their herds there.

New designs and construction

In 1887 Olmsted and Vaux were asked to modify their original plan to accommodate changed conditions, such as the 116th Street and Eighth Avenue elevated railway station, and construction of the park began. Among other changes, the modified design included a broad path and a thin path traversing the lower portion of the park. In 1887, a group of Civil War veterans camped in the incomplete park for a weekend, fired cannon salutes and, in a mock assault, stormed the castlelike retaining walls. The newspapers reported that they scrambled up scaling ladders "like cats" even though most "have doubled their waist measure since the days when they did such climbing as a business." Construction of the park was completed in 1895. Vaux, who had remained with the project throughout that time as a consultant, drowned that year in Gravesend Bay. Parks Superintendent Samuel Parsons Jr. afterwards would write that "...perhaps Morningside Park was the most consummate piece of art that [Vaux] had ever created."

The early 20th century

The park had a number of monuments installed after it was completed. In 1900, the statue Lafayette and Washington by Frédéric-Auguste Bartholdi was installed. In 1913 the Carl Schurz Memorial by Karl Bitter and Henry Bacon was put in the park, and the following year the Seligman (Bear and Faun) Fountain by Edgar Walter was installed.

By the early 20th century, the park was perceived as extremely dangerous. Crime in Morningside Park, because of its proximity to Harlem, was often reported as a racial matter. In 1935 The New York Times reported that Teachers College of Columbia University had posted a sign in a dormitory informing students "it is not safe to enter Morningside Park at any time of the day or night." Softball diamonds, basketball courts, and playgrounds were constructed in the east and south parts of the park between the 1930s and 1950s.

Gymnasium and 1960s Columbia protests

In 1960, Columbia proposed building a gym in the park at 113th Street. Opposition to the gym crystallized in major student protests in 1968. The university planned to build a gymnasium on the park as a joint project with the city. Protesters believed the planned separate east and west entrances amounted to an attempt to circumvent recent federal law that banned racially segregated facilities. The distinctive local geography and demographics would have opened one end of the gymnasium to African-American Harlem residents and opened the other end to the predominantly white university. University administration under Grayson Kirk denied that this reflected racial bias and stressed that greater park services would benefit the Harlem community. The university abandoned the plan in 1969 after students occupied administration and classroom buildings and shut down the university for several weeks.

Cleanup and current state

By the '70s, Morningside Park, the effective boundary between Morningside Heights and Harlem, had a dangerous reputation and had degraded with years of neglect. In 1981 a group of Columbia undergraduates founded the Friends of Morningside Park, which advocated returning the park to its original design. Since its founding, the group has rehabilitated the park through volunteerism. In 1989 and 1990, US $5 million was spent converting the excavated crater left by the abandoned gymnasium project into a waterfall and ornamental pond. The reconstruction, which focused on the park between 110th to 114th Streets, also included installing new playground equipment, planting trees, creating a picnic area, and renovating the sports fields. After the statues were refurbished, in 1998 the park renovated the bluestone steps at 116th street.

In 1998, construction began on the Dr. Thomas Kiel Arboretum in the park, named after a founder and former chairman of the Friends of Morningside Park. In 1998 and 1999, a group named the Morningside Area Alliance (MAA) received $35,000 in grant funding from the Kaplan Foundation to work on the park. A portion was used to assess what the park needed done most urgently, while a second portion went to reorganizing the largely dismantled Friends volunteer group. In 2001, around 14 major public events were organized by volunteers in the park, including festivals, concerts, and various holiday celebrations. As of 2005, Friends of Morningside Park had approximately 1,000 volunteers.

Features

Operated by New York City Department of Parks and Recreation, Morningside Park's distinctive natural geography is a rugged cliff of Manhattan schist rock. There is a large rock formation of Manhattan Schist in the park, which is a visible sign of the bedrock below much of lower and northern Manhattan. The park is one of several promoted by Andrew Haswell Green that owes much of its design to Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux. Twentieth century additions include playgrounds, basketball courts, and softball diamonds.

In 1998, construction began on an arboretum in the park. The design of the arboretum was based on original plans for Central Park sketched by Olmsted and Calvart in 1858. While later abandoned, these arboretum plans involved paths leading through several hundred species of trees and shrubs. The plans were reworked for Morningside Park as The Kiel Arboretum, and was started with plantings of the trees from the Magnoliaceae (magnolia) family and shrubs from the Ranunculaceae (buttercup) and Berberidaceae (barberry) families.

Other features include:

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