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Research dossier · Places & Architecture

Gorman Park

public park in Manhattan, New York

Architectural plans, a scale model, maps and brass measuring instruments
Places and architectureInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 18, 2026
Entity authorityQ5586633 ↗
Source-derived summary

Gorman Park (or Amelia Gorman Park) is a 1.89-acre (0.76 ha) park in Washington Heights, Manhattan, New York City. It is bounded by Broadway on the west and Wadsworth Terrace on the east, lying between 188th and 190th Streets.

The upper plaza of the park, along Wadsworth Terrace, is situated at an elevation of about 210 feet (64 m). At Broadway, at the bottom of the park, the elevation is about 120 feet (37 m). The land rises in a steep incline from Broadway to Wadsworth Terrace, and the park features a stone stairway and path that winds upward among trees, an important thoroughfare connecting Broadway and Wadsworth.

However, most of the park and the connection from the lower to upper sections of 188–190th Street have been closed since 2017. As of January 2024, due to the city's failure to complete repairs of the retaining wall, only the upper plaza is open. The closure ended residents' access between the upper and lower neighborhoods without going many blocks north or south, so what was once a walk of 330 feet now requires walking one-third of a mile.

History

The park is dedicated to a mother and daughter, Gertie Amelia Gorman and Gertie Emily Gorman. Gertie Emily Gorman and Charles Webb (a real estate investor and Yale graduate) had been married for less than a year when she died on September 25, 1923.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Gorman Park” is public park in Manhattan, New York. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Gorman, Park and public, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA valuable geographic starting point for tracing changing names, boundaries, uses and administrative responsibility. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—2017, 2024, 1923—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. For this dossier, Gorman, Park and public is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “public park in Manhattan, New York” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Maps, plans, fabric surveys and administrative records can establish how the site’s name, extent and function changed over time. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 18, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5586633. Authority coordinates are 40.856, -73.933. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2017, 2024 and 1923.

Critical limits

Architectural summaries often privilege surviving fabric and can understate demolished phases, contested use or displaced communities. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Treat names, boundaries and functions as historically changeable. Maps, plans, inventories and administrative records can clarify what the place meant at different dates.

Best used for
  • Historic place names
  • Jurisdictional context
  • Routes into maps and plans
Verify next

Contemporary maps, plans, listed-building records, estate papers and the responsible local or national archive.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Gorman Park”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Gorman Park primary sources, Gorman Park archive and Gorman research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Gorman Park”?
  2. Which authority defined the place, boundary or structure at the relevant date?
  3. What physical evidence or contemporary plan supports the description?
Subject index

Search terms from this dossier

Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Gorman Park” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.