St. Vartan Park

The decision to create a new public park on the block bounded by First and Second avenues and 35th and 36th streets came from a recommendation made by the Small Parks Commission, an advisory committee appointed by New York City Mayor William Lafayette Strong in 1897 with the purpose of creating additional small parks and playgrounds. The new park, which was originally 2.95 acres (1.19 ha) in size, displaced an entire city block previously occupied by tenements.^[3][4][5][6] A resolution authorizing a park on this site was adopted by the New York City Board of Public Improvements in June 1901.^[7] In October 1901, Mayor Van Wyck approved an ordinance passed by the New York City Municipal Assembly to lay out a public park on the block and authorized the commencement of condemnation proceedings for property acquisition.^[2] The land for the park was obtained by the city in 1903, and a total amount of $1,028,000 was awarded to property owners as compensation for the taking of their land.^[6][8]

The park was constructed from 1904 to 1905 and was originally named St. Gabriel's Park after the former St. Gabriel Church located at 310 East 37th Street,^[6][9] however, before the park was completed there were debates over its naming. Some of the local residents—including members of the St. Gabriel Church—felt that the park should instead be named "Civic Park" in recognition of the nearby Civic Club and the efforts of Captain F. Norton Goddard to locate the new park in the district.^[10][11] Although the name of the park had been designated as "Civic Park" by the Department of Parks Board of Commissioners in December 1903, a resolution to change the name to "St. Gabriel's Park" was passed by the New York City Board of Aldermen in March 1904 and ended the debate regarding the name.^[12][13][14]

The park was originally laid out with a playground near its west end, a gymnasium containing a running track in the middle of the block, and a comfort station near the east end; landscaping bordered the park's perimeter. The grounds were equipped with playground fixtures and gymnasium apparatus in 1906 and the playground opened to the public on October 4, 1906. The girls' playground included the first playground slide installed by the New York Park Department.^{[9][15][16][17]}

Renovations to the park were made in the mid-1930s, which included the addition of basketball, handball and shuffleboard courts, a roller skating track, and a softball diamond. Reconstruction of the western half of the park was completed in August 1936 and the remainder of the park reopened in February 1937.^[6][18][19]

A war memorial for the soldiers from Murray Hill who died in World War I was unveiled in October 1936. This memorial originally consisted of a flagpole, bronze plaques and a grove of trees; the tablets have since been relocated from the base of the flagpole to the field house on the east side of the park.^[20][21][22]

In 1938, a portion of the park was removed to make way for an approach roadway leading to the Queens–Midtown Tunnel, which was completed in 1940.^[6] Construction of the Manhattan portal of the tunnel also resulted in the elimination of St. Gabriel Church, the original namesake for the park.^[23]

During early planning stages, the location of the tunnel's entrance/exit plaza had been proposed between 36th and 38th streets from First to Second avenues, which was opposed by both the First Avenue Association and Manhattan Parks Commissioner Walter R. Herrick given its proximity to St. Gabriel's Park. The First Avenue Association recommended moving the plaza one block to the north to avoid the park, but acknowledged that this would increase the cost of condemning buildings, including the Eleto Company warehouse on East 38th Street.^[24][25][26] The tunnel's entrance/exit plaza was subsequently relocated to run from 36th to 37th streets between First and Third avenues and was designed to minimize acquisition costs and impacts to existing buildings while also providing accommodations to connect to a proposed crosstown vehicular tunnel to the Lincoln Tunnel.^[27]

When New York City Parks Commissioner Robert Moses learned of the Queens Midtown Tunnel Authority's plan to use part of St. Gabriel's Park for an approach to the tunnel, he criticized the authority for not informing him about the plan and also assuming they could obtain park land. Moses planned to fight the proposal to use the park, as the law only allowed the city to transfer property to the tunnel authority that "is not devoted to any other public use." The New York State Legislature soon passed a new bill that abolished the Queens Midtown Tunnel Authority and created the New York City Tunnel Authority in its place, eliminating the language that Moses felt protected the transfer of park land in the process.^[28][29]

The First Avenue Association called upon the tunnel authority to purchase new land for park purposes provided that any existing park space was used in building the tunnel.^[30] New parkland was later added in the vicinity of 42nd Street to offset the land taking in St. Gabriel's Park, which resulted in the creation of Robert Moses Playground adjacent to the tunnel's ventilation building.^[31] The western portion of St. Gabriel's Park was subsequently reconstructed to account for tunnel approach roadway with relocations of trees, benches, playground areas and utilities as well as the addition of new fencing and landscaping.^[6][32]

In 1978, St. Gabriel's Park was renamed St. Vartan Park after the St. Vartan Armenian Cathedral that had opened across the street from the park in 1968. A motion to rename the park was unanimously approved by the New York City Council in April 1978 and was signed into law by Mayor Ed Koch the following month.^{[6][33][34][35]} A dedication ceremony to mark the renaming of the park was held on April 23, 1978.^[33][36]

In 1982, as part of the development of the Manhattan Place apartment building on the east side of First Avenue between 36th and 37th streets, The Glick Organization agreed to renovate St. Vartan Park and contributed $900,000 in private funds to rehabilitate the playground and field house on the east side of the park. This renovation was completed in 1984 and also included the planting of new trees and over 9,200 shrubs.^[6][37][38] From 2001–2002, the playground underwent another reconstruction using a total of $582,000 of public funds contributed by Andrew S. Eristoff and Eva Moskowitz, the council members for the 4th district of the New York City Council.^[6][39][40]

In the early 2010s, a water supply shaft for New York City Water Tunnel No. 3 was constructed near the southwest corner of St. Vartan Park. Shaft 32B was drilled approximately 495 feet (151 m) down into bedrock to connect with a spur of Stage 2 of the water tunnel that begins at Shaft 26B on Tenth Avenue between 30th and 31st streets. Construction of the shaft required the temporary closure of approximately 1,460 square feet (136 m²) of the park and construction of an interim entrance to the basketball court from Tunnel Approach Street. The completed shaft includes two hatchways and 10-foot-high (3.0 m) air vents in sidewalk on 35th Street within the mapped parkland. The hatchways provide access to underground valve and distribution chambers, which are used to shut down the risers for maintenance and provide connections to water mains serving the surrounding area.^[41][42][43]

The park's asphalt playground was replaced by a synthetic turf field in 2021 to improve existing parks due to the temporary loss of park space during construction of the city's East Side Coastal Resiliency project.^[44] Not all park users were happy with the addition of the turf field—especially given the growing popularity of pickleball that was occurring at the time—because the park's asphalt playing field was able to accommodate as many as 12 pickleball courts. As a comparison, the west end of the park adjacent to the wall used for handball and as a tennis backboard only had enough room to accommodate up to four pickleball courts. Despite the elimination of the asphalt playground, in 2022 St. Vartan Park had 800 members in a pickleball group on Slack and was considered one of Manhattan's top spots for pickleball, with its courts being used for games throughout much of the day on a daily basis.^[45][46][47] Annual pickleball tournaments have also been held at the park.^[48]

In October 2021, the garden located on the east end of the park (adjacent to First Avenue) was opened to the public for a two-month-long trial. The gate to the garden had been locked since at least 2000 when the space started being used exclusively by the St. Vartan Preschool. After the conclusion of the trial period, the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation (NYC Parks) then agreed to keep the garden open to the public on a permanent basis the following spring.^[49] The site had been previously used as a vegetable garden during the Great Depression and World War II, but NYC Parks thought that the space had never been open to the public throughout the park's history.^[50] An ADA compliant-entrance and pathway was later added to the garden in 2024. The improvements to visitor access were funded by the Soloviev Foundation through NYC Parks' Adopt-A-Park program.^[51] The Soloviev Foundation is the philanthropic arm of the Soloviev Group, the developer of the vacant parcel of land on First Avenue between 38th and 41st streets (the former location of the Waterside Generating Station), that is seeking to open a casino on the site.^[52]

In April 2022, the St. Vartan Park Conservancy was formed as a not-for-profit organization.^[53] A public event to welcome the conservancy and to celebrate the opening of the St. Vartan Park garden to the general public after years of closure was held in the garden on May 9, 2022. Remarks were delivered at the event by elected officials, St. Vartan Park Conservancy officers and others including from NYC Parks and a local public elementary school.^[54]

• St. Vartan Park – NYC Department of Parks and Recreation
• St. Vartan Park Conservancy