Robert Moses Playground
park in Manhattan
Robert Moses Playground is a 1.3-acre (0.53 ha) playground and park in Manhattan, New York City. It is located in the Murray Hill neighborhood on First Avenue between 41st and 42nd streets, immediately south of the headquarters of the United Nations. The park is named for New York's "master builder" Robert Moses, the former head of the Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority (which donated the land for the playground as part of the construction of the Queens–Midtown Tunnel), who later advocated to save the park when a skyscraper was proposed on the site in the early 1980s.
History
Establishment of park
The block the park is located on was originally obtained from Consolidated Edison in 1937 as part of the Queens–Midtown Tunnel construction. Land for public park purposes was subsequently donated to the city in exchange for the taking of a portion of St. Gabriel's Park for an approach roadway providing access to the tunnel. The park itself was completed in 1941 and shares the block with the large ventilation building for the tunnel. Designed by the Department of Parks and constructed by the Works Progress Administration, the new park included a free play area on the west end of the block for roller skating and softball. A passageway on the north side of the ventilation building led to a 100-by-200-foot (30 by 61 m) paved area at the east end of the block with a comfort station and courts for basketball, handball, horseshoes, paddle tennis, and volleyball. Retaining walls needed to be constructed throughout the park due the change in grade along the block, which sloped down from First Avenue to the East River Drive.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Robert Moses Playground” as park in Manhattan. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the places & architecture register because the source frames it as park in Manhattan. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
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 Aug 2, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7347847. Authority coordinates are 40.748, -73.970. 1 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1937 and 1941.
A single description cannot reconcile every naming convention, rebuilding phase or administrative transfer associated with a place. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “Robert Moses Playground” 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.