Van Cortlandt Park is a 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, was named for the Van Cortlandt family, which was prominent in the area during the Dutch and English colonial periods.
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
Settlement and colonization The forest in what is now Van Cortlandt Park has been around for 17,000 years, since the end of the Wisconsin glaciation. 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. 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.
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. Van der Donck also paid the Indian chief Tacharew, whose tribe used to live on the land, as a friendly gesture. He named the land "Colen Donck" and built a house upon the land. The house was built between current-day Van Cortlandt Lake and Broadway. It faced south, probably because this was the location of a natural marshland. What is now the parade ground was used by van der Donck for farming.
Van der Donck died in 1655. 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. This forced the settlers, including van der Donck's widow, to flee to Manhattan. 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. 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. In 1668, 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. This property included the modern park parade grounds. Next, Doughty sold a tract of land, including the current site of the Van Cortlandt House, to Frederick Philipse, Thomas Delavall, and Thomas Lewis. 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. Philipse's wife died, and he remarried Olof Stevense Van Cortlandt's daughter, herself a widow. Philipse's daughter Eva later married Jacobus Van Cortlandt, who was Mrs. Philipse's brother.
The land that Van Cortlandt Park now occupies was acquired by Van Cortlandt from Philipse in the mid-to-late 1690s. In 1699, Van Cortlandt dammed Tibbetts Brook in order to power a sawmill (and later, a gristmill,), creating Van Cortlandt Lake as a mill pond in the process. In 1732, Van Cortlandt acquired an additional parcel from the Tippett family. 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. In 1748, Frederick built the Van Cortlandt House on the former Tippett property, but died before its completion. The Van Cortlandts did not primarily live in that house, instead staying in Manhattan most of the time. A family burial ground was created in 1749, later to be known as "Vault Hill." Frederick, who was buried in Vault Hill, had willed the massive home and surrounding lands to his son, James Van Cortlandt (1727–1787).
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. British General William Howe made the house his headquarters on November 13, 1776, thus placing it behind British-held ground. The Van Cortlandts wished to stay neutral in the war, however. Later, the grounds were used by Patriot militia leaders Comte de Rochambeau, Marquis de Lafayette, and George Washington. The house itself was Washington's headquarters after his troops were defeated in the 1776 Battle of Long Island. 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. 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. 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. He later lit campfires outside the house to deceive the British into thinking that his troops were still on the grounds. 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.
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. 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. Thus, in 1837, construction started on the Aqueduct, which ran from the Croton River upstate to the New York Public Library Main Branch and Bryant Park in midtown Manhattan. The project was built by 3,000–4,000 laborers who completed the entire aqueduct in five years. The aqueduct's builders constructed a gatehouse within the present-day park to provide access to the aqueduct's interior. 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.
Planning 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. 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. There were objections to the system, which would apparently be too far from Manhattan, in addition to precluding development on the site. 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). In June 1884, Governor Grover Cleveland signed the New Parks Act into law, authorizing the creation of the park system.
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. 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.
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. 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. The tracks were used for passenger traffic until 1958, and by freight trains until 1981. 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. Service began in March 1888 and ran until 1942 (see ).
Creation