The park is named after famed
English explorer
Henry Hudson, who is also the namesake of the nearby
Hudson River,
Henry Hudson Parkway and
Henry Hudson Bridge. In 1906 the
Hudson-Fulton Celebration was organized to celebrate the 300th anniversary of Hudson's arrival in what later became
Lower New York Bay and the 100th anniversary of
Robert Fulton's
North River Steamboat's initial voyage. The celebration was held from September 25 to October 9 in New York and New Jersey. A monument to Hudson to Hudson was planned in
Spuyten Duyvil, Bronx; a site was donated to the city and local businesses raised funds for work to begin in 1909. The project encountered multiple delays, but in 1912 a
Doric column, designed by Walter Cook of
Babb, Cook & Welch, was set in place t the park's highest elevation. Shortly after, funds for the project, which had been raised by subscription, ran out. Additionally the sculptor chosen to create the "Heroic statue of Henry Hudson" to stand atop the column,
Karl Bitter, died in 1915, having completed only a partial plaster model of his planned "Heroic statue of Henry Hudson". The project stalled. It was revived by
New York City Parks Commissioner Robert Moses in the late 1930s under the auspices of the
Henry Hudson Parkway Authority, and by 1938, the area around the monument had been designated as a park and a bronze statue of
Henry Hudson, redesigned and completed by Karl Gruppe – a student of Bitter – from Bitter's plaster model, After his death in 2004, the local community continued his efforts to keep the park safe and clean. Additional capital projects were completed by 2019. ==References==