Pelham Bay Park
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Pelham Bay Park, located in the northeast corner of the The Bronx, is the largest park in New York City, more than three times the size of Manhattan's Central Park. It includes land on both sides of the Hutchinson River and all of Hunter Island in Long Island Sound (now also part of the mainland). On its north is the village of Pelham Manor in Westchester County. The park borders the Bronx neighborhoods of Spencer Estates, Pelham Bay, and Co-op City. The southern part of Rodman's Neck is not part of the park but is occupied by the NYPD Rodman's Neck Firing Range. The City Island Bridge connects the park to City Island. A very old plantation-style mansion called Bartow-Pell Mansion is a colonial remnant done in greek revival style. The lagoon nearby was once part of Pelham Bay and was called Le Roy's Bay in colonial times. The lagoon was widened and dredged to make way for the planned New York City Olympics in 1960's, but it may be useful in the 2012 NYC Olympics. At the northeast section of the park is Orchard Beach and a parking lot that were created by Robert Moses as the Riviera of Long Island Sound. One third of Pelham Bay, from which the park got it's name, was filled in with landfill to make Orchard Beach. The park is crossed by the New England Thruway, the Hutchinson River Parkway, and Amtrak's Northeast Corridor railroad.
History
Anne Hutchinson's short-lived dissident colony, along with a number of other unsuccessful settlements, was located in what is now the park's land. The colony, though English, was under Dutch authority; it was destroyed in 1643 by a Siwanoy attack in reprisal for the unrelated massacres carried out under Willem Kieft's direction of the Dutch West India Company's New Amsterdam colony. In 1654 an Englishman named Thomas Pell purchased 50,000 acres (200 km²) from the Siwanoy, land which would become known as Pelham Manor after Charles II's 1666 charter.
During the American Revolution, the land was a buffer between British-held New York City and rebel-held Westchester. As such it was the site of the Battle of Pell's Point, where Massachusetts militia hiding behind stone walls (still visible at one of the park's golf courses) stopped a British advance.
The park was created in 1888, under the auspices of the Bronx Parks Department, and passed to New York City when the part of the Bronx east of the Bronx River was annexed to the city in 1895. Orchard Beach, one of the city's most popular, was created through the efforts of Robert Moses in the 1930s.
In 1941, the NYPD Rodman's Neck Firing Range was created using land from the park.
Landmarks
- Orchard Beach
- Bartow-Pell Mansion Museum (http://www.bartowpellmansionmuseum.org/)
- Split Rock Golf Course, site of the Battle of Pell Point
External links
- The Bronx would play a peripheral role in proposed NYC 2012 Olympics (http://www.bronxpress.com/3_7_02front.html)