Highbridge Park derives its name from New York City’s oldest standing bridge, the
High Bridge (1848), which was built to carry the Old
Croton Aqueduct over the
Harlem River. From the 17th to the 19th centuries, the area was sparsely populated with scattered farms and private estates. During the
American Revolution, General
George Washington used the
Morris-Jumel Mansion, adjacent to the southern end of the park near Edgecombe Avenue and West 160th Street, as his headquarters in September and October 1776.
Establishment The
New York City Department of Public Parks acquired a strip of land on the Harlem River between 155th and Dyckman Streets in May 1884. Afterward, several commissioners were appointed to assess the value of existing land lots within the park. Local landowners complained about a New York state law that would force them to pay for half of the park's assessed value. A
New York Supreme Court judge halted the project in 1886 following disputes over property appraisals. The park hosted the 1887
USA Cross Country Championships. In February 1888,
Samuel Parsons Jr. and
Calvert Vaux were ordered to prepare plans for Highbridge Park, with a main entrance at 159th Street. That June, the secretary of the city's Board of Street Opening was asked to prepare a resolution setting the park's northern and southern borders at 186th and 155th Streets, respectively. The borders were revised in December 1888 to encompass the land between
Tenth (Amsterdam) Avenue to the west and the Harlem River to the east.Three men were appointed in April 1889 to appraise 1,976 lots on the site; one of the appointees, former U.S. President
Grover Cleveland, declined the position. Property owners continued to oppose the new park, speaking out against a proposed northward extension to Dyckman Street that would have cost $2.5 million. In December 1889, the Board of Street Opening formally decided to reduce the park from , running only from 170th to 181st Street. The majority of the new park, approximately , was to incorporate the original High Bridge Park on the same site. A racetrack for horses, the
Harlem River Speedway, was opened along the riverbank of the park in 1898.
20th century Early 20th century The cliffside area from West 181st Street to Dyckman Street was acquired in 1902, and the parcel including Fort George Hill was acquired in 1928. In 1934 the Department of Parks obtained the Highbridge Tower and the site of the old
Highbridge Reservoir. By the early years of the 20th century, upper-middle class New Yorkers would promenade along the wide boardwalks in top hats and bustles. The park provided access to the
Harlem River and places for horseback riding and other outdoor sports. By the 1920s dirt and other materials from the build-up of the new
Washington Heights neighborhood threatened to ruin the nascent park; a harbinger of bad times to befall the park.
Works Progress Administration renovation In 1934, mayor
Fiorello H. La Guardia nominated
Robert Moses to become commissioner of a unified
New York City Department of Parks and Recreation. At the time, the United States was experiencing the
Great Depression; immediately after La Guardia won the
1933 election, Moses began to write "a plan for putting 80,000 men to work on 1,700 relief projects". By the time he was in office, several hundred such projects were underway across the city. Moses was especially interested in creating new pools and other bathing facilities, such as those in
Jacob Riis Park,
Jones Beach, and
Orchard Beach. He devised a list of 23 pools around the city, including one at Highbridge Park. The pools would be built using funds from the
Works Progress Administration (WPA), a federal agency created as part of the
New Deal to combat the Depression's negative effects. Eleven of these pools were to be designed concurrently and open in 1936. Moses, along with the architects
Aymar Embury II and
Gilmore David Clarke, created a common design for these proposed aquatic centers. Each location was to have distinct pools for diving, swimming, and wading; bleachers and viewing areas; and bathhouses with locker rooms that could be used as gymnasiums. The pools were to have several common features, such as a minimum length, underwater lighting, heating, and filtration, all constructed using inexpensive materials. To fit the requirement for efficiency and low-cost construction, each building would be built using elements of the
Streamline Moderne and
Classical architectural styles. The buildings would also be near "comfort stations", additional playgrounds, and spruced-up landscapes. Construction for some of the 11 pools began that October, with work commencing on the Highbridge and
Hamilton Fish Pools. By mid-1936, ten of the eleven WPA funded pools were completed and were being opened at a rate of one per week. being opened on July 14, 1936. The complex included a main pool and wading pool.
Later 20th century In 1940, Moses turned portions of the Speedway into the
Harlem River Drive, a 6-lane highway from the Manhattan end of the
Triborough Bridge at
125th Street, to the tunnels under Manhattan to the
George Washington Bridge. New fences blocked public recreational access to the riverfront. It was this series of actions, according to Parks & Recreation Commissioner Adrian Benepe, that "ruined" the park. The Highbridge Play Center bathhouse was restored in the 1960s, during which the original murals by
Charles Clarke were destroyed or covered over. The , High Bridge walkway was closed to regular public use around 1970. The controversial '
Daisy Girl'
political advertisement was filmed in Highbridge Park in the summer of 1964. By the 1970s, Highbridge Park and other city parks were in poor condition following the
1975 New York City fiscal crisis. Particularly in Highbridge Park, large sections set aside as natural areas, had been taken over by homeless people who built permanent shacks made of sheet metal and steel pipes driven into the earth. Prostitutes, drug dealers and drug users frequented the park. These projects were not carried out due to a lack of money. By March 1981, NYC Parks had only 2,900 employees in its total staff, less than 10 percent of the 30,000 present when Moses was parks commissioner. In 1982, the NYC Parks budget increased greatly, enabling the agency to carry out $76 million worth of restoration projects by year's end; among these projects was the restoration of the Highbridge Park pool. The play center and pool were completely renovated over a three-year period following a design by architect
Stephen B. Jacobs. The play center reopened on June 14, 1985. NYC Parks continued to face financial shortfalls in the coming years, and the pools retained a reputation for high crime. By the mid-1980s, Highbridge had become so degraded that during a manual cleanup in 1986, 250 tons of garbage and 25 auto wrecks were removed, but garbage again began to fill the park within a matter of days. For the summer of 1991, mayor David Dinkins had planned to close all 32 outdoor pools in the city, a decision that was only reversed after a $2 million donation from a trust created upon the death of real estate developer
Sol Goldman and $1.8 million from other sources. By the turn of the century, crimes such as sexual assaults had decreased in parks citywide due to increased security. The park also received a renovation in 1996, which included a $305,000 pool filtration system and a $445,000 renovation of heating and ventilation in the pool area. Around 2010, the waterfront Speedway was rehabilitated and reopened as the Harlem River portion of the
Manhattan Waterfront Greenway. By late 2011, despite the efforts of both the NYRP and NYC Parks, the infrastructure of the park had decayed significantly. The city announced plans for a skatepark under the Hamilton Bridge in 2013, and it opened the following year. The city also announced plans for an ice-skating rink in 2014. A citizen-driven restoration movement culminated in a grant from the
Bloomberg administration to repair the bridge and make some other improvements. The restored bridge was reopened on June 9, 2015. However, the park itself still faced several problems. A writer for
Curbed NY observed that there were homeless encampments under the Harlem River Drive, and that much of the park south of
Washington Bridge remained overgrown. In contrast, the NYRP-maintained northern section of the park was extremely clean. At the time, NYC Parks postponed plans for an ice-skating rink due to a lack of interest. The second phase, which started in July 2019, included restoration of the water tower and the Adventure Playground at 164th Street. 10–15 acres of dense brush caught fire in November 2024, as part of a
series of wildfires in the Northeast United States due to a drought. For many hours, smoke from it billowed over
Harlem River Drive. The section that burned is steep, dense, and without much water. ==Attractions and facilities==