Synopsis
Excerpt from The Tenement House Problem, Vol. 2 of 2: Including the Report of the New York State Tenement House Commission of 1900
Attention was first called to the great need of parks in tenement districts by the Tenement House Commission appointed in 1884. In the report which they submitted to the legislature in the early part of 1885, they called attention to this need, suggesting the opening of Leonard Street through to Pell Street, so as to do away with "The Mulberry Bend," a notorious block of tenements. This plan, it appears, was recommended forty years previously, but had never been carried out. In 1887, through the efforts of the Hon. Abram S. Hewitt, a law was passed known as the Small Parks Act, being Chapter 320 of the Laws of that year, authorizing and empowering the Board of Street Opening and Improvement of New York City "to select, locate and lay out such and so many public parks in the City of New York south of 155th Street, as the said Board may from time to time determine." The act also provided that not more than the sum of $1,000,000 should be expended or be authorized to be expended in any one year for this purpose. Notwithstanding the fact that this law had been on the statute-books for six years, as late as 1893 no action had been taken under it except proceedings commenced in 1887 to have the notorious Mulberry Bend torn down and converted into a small park. The commissioners appointed by the Supreme Court to determine the assessments and the award of damages did not, however, present their report to the court until five years later, in 1892, and not until 1896, nine years after the resolution was passed, was Mulberry Bend Park finally finished.
The Tenement House Commission of 1894 devoted much time and thought to the subject of small parks, and had bills introduced in the Legislature requiring the laying out of two small parks in the tenement quarters of the city, below 14th Street. These laws were passed in 1895. One of these parks, the Hamilton Fish Park, located at Houston and Sheriff Streets, was turned over to the public in the summer of 1900, after five years. The other park, known as the W. H. Seward Park, located at Canal and Jefferson Streets, has not yet been completed.
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