Landscape Information
Occupying one block in the West Village, this irregularly shaped site includes a 1.67-acre park and a recreation center. The park was originally the site of St. John’s Cemetery (1812–1895), the uptown burial ground for Trinity Church. After acquiring the cemetery in 1895 the city engaged architects Carrère & Hastings and, by the time construction began two years later, few burials were relocated.
The park originally featured a sunken garden, lagoon, perimeter walk, and gazebo; by 1903 it included a playground. A public bathhouse and gymnasium—the Carmine Street Recreation Center (now the Tony Dapolito Recreation Center)—was established to the park’s immediate east four years later, designed by architects Renwick, Aspinwall & Tucker. By 1935 a comfort station and baseball field were introduced and the lagoon filled to accommodate a larger playground. In 1939 an outdoor pool, designed by Aymar Embury II, was installed by the Works Progress Administration between the park and the recreation center. The playground was rehabilitated in the 1970s with support from the Land and Water Conservation Fund, and, in 1987, artist Keith Haring painted a eighteen-foot-high by 170-foot-long mural facing the pool. A capital renovation project in 1996 introduced play equipment, benches, trees, and, integrating piers from the late nineteenth-century, a perimeter iron fence.
Today, a marble sarcophagus situated near the park’s northern entrance, serves as the only visible reminder of the former cemetery. Shaded by ginkgo and locust street trees, the park includes an athletic field, handball courts, and a playground. The latter affords views of the pool, which is enlivened by Haring’s mural. Painted with abstract shapes and bold motifs of fish, mermaids, sea creatures, and humans, the artwork has been rehabilitated several times since its initial installation.
The park and recreation center are contributing features of the South Village Historic District, listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 2014.
