Astoria Park is a public park in the Astoria neighborhood of Queens in New York City. The park is situated on the eastern shore of the Hell Gate, a strait of the East River, between Ditmars Boulevard to the north and Hoyt Avenue to the south. The Robert F. Kennedy (Triborough) and Hell Gate Bridges respectively pass over the park's southern and northern sections. Astoria Park contains a playground, a soccer field, a running track, a skate park, and courts for tennis, basketball, and bocce. Astoria Park also includes the Astoria Play Center, which consists of a recreation center and a pool. The park and play center are maintained by the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation (NYC Parks).
Astoria Park was planned in 1905, but the land was not acquired until October 1913. Astoria Park was formally named after the surrounding neighborhood in December 1913, and recreational facilities gradually opened within the park during the next two decades. The pool and bathhouse were designed by John Hatton during a Works Progress Administration project in 1935–1936 and was used for the United States Olympic Trials for swimming during 1936, 1952, and 1964. The park was extensively renovated in the 1980s and the late 2010s. The Astoria Play Center was designated a city landmark by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission in 2007.
Description Astoria Park is in the Astoria neighborhood of Queens in New York City. It is bounded by Astoria Park South, an extension of Hoyt Avenue, to the south; the Hell Gate, a strait of the East River, to the west; Ditmars Boulevard to the north; and 19th Street to the east. The RFK (Triborough) Bridge crosses over the southern section of Astoria Park. The Hell Gate Bridge, carrying Amtrak's Northeast Corridor and the New York Connecting Railroad, crosses over the northern section. The park is separated from the Hell Gate and the East River by a road called Shore Boulevard.
The park covers . The southeastern corner of the park under the RFK Bridge, between Hoyt Avenue North and Hoyt Avenue South, extends east to 21st Street. Astoria Park is crossed by numerous paths, of which some are paved in hexagonal blocks, while others contain asphalt paving. Several paths are built on slopes and contain staggered steps. Several entrances are spaced around the perimeter of the park.
In the western portion of the park, along Shore Boulevard, is a memorial dedicated to World War I victims. There is also a plaque commemorating the PS General Slocum, which caught fire and sunk in the Hell Gate in 1904, killing over a thousand people.
Recreational facilities Recreational facilities are concentrated in the southern two-thirds of the park, south of 23rd Avenue. The southernmost portion of Astoria Park, at 18th Street and Astoria Park South, contains a running track, which surrounds a soccer field. East of the running track are fourteen tennis courts and a restroom. The tennis court area protrudes slightly under the RFK Bridge. A "tennis landscape" separates the tennis courts from the street. There is a parking lot just north of the running track, underneath the RFK Bridge and at the western end of Hoyt Avenue North. Also underneath the bridge, west of the parking lot, is a skate park. New York Road Runners hosts a weekly 3.10-mile Open Run within the park.
The central portion of the park contains the Astoria Pool and Play Center. There are also basketball courts southwest of the pool area, as well as bocce courts and Charybdis Playground north of the pool area. Charybdis Playground sits opposite the Hell Gate from Scylla Point on Wards Island. The two features are named after Scylla and Charybdis, two water hazards described in Homer's Odyssey, and refer to the dangerous whirlpools in the waters of the Hell Gate. Charybdis Playground was named first, in 1997; Scylla Point was named in 2001 after parks commissioner Henry Stern petitioned the federal government to rename what was then known as "Negro Point", in 2001. Charybdis Playground contains a decorated one-story brick restroom. The restroom contains decorative piers protruding from all four corners; glass-block openings; and Art Deco lettering indicating the girls' and boys' restrooms.
Astoria Play Center Pools
Astoria Park contains an enclosed elliptical pool area that is aligned north-south, with two pools (formerly three). The main pool is rectangular and measures , with a depth of and a surface area of . It was the largest of 11 pools in New York City that were completed by the Works Progress Administration in 1936. At its peak, the pool area was able to fit 6,200 swimmers, and the main pool alone had a capacity of 5,570. The pools hosted swimming trials for three Summer Olympic Games in 1936, 1952, and 1964.
The main pool is flanked by two semicircular pools, each with a 165-foot diameter. The wading pool is north of the main pool and is surrounded by spray spouts. The diving pool to the south was drained and fenced off in the 1980s, and was totally infilled between 2017 and 2019. The still-extant diving board measures tall, with three platforms cantilevered over each other. The diving board, described by Architectural Record as "an example of design for function", allowed four contestants to dive simultaneously: one each from the top and bottom, and two from the middle.
The deck surrounding the pools is made of cement. The deck is surrounded by concrete bleachers and enclosed by a brick perimeter wall topped by a wrought iron fence. There is also a filter house on the western side of the pool area. The filter house contains a balcony that is raised one story above the pool deck and two stories above a plaza to the west. The filter house's balcony has a roof that is designed like a saucer.
Bathhouse
The bathhouse was designed by John Hatton. It incorporates both classical motifs, such as brick piers, and modern motifs, such as geometric brickwork. The bathhouse is a U-shaped brick structure west of 19th Street, between 23rd Drive to the north and 23rd Terrace to the south. Pavilions extend north and south of the bathhouse's central lobby. Wings extend eastward into the hillside from the ends of both pavilions. The main entrance plaza is sunken below street level, surrounded by the bathhouse pavilion to the west, the wings to the north and south, and 19th Street to the east. The entrance plaza is accessed via two ramps with steps, which extend north to 23rd Drive and south to 23rd Terrace.
The main entrance is flanked by a pair of stepped-brick piers with glass brick columns set into the middle of each pier. The pool entrance, at the center of the western facade, is also flanked by stepped-brick piers with glass brick columns and contains a clock suspended above the center. As designed, the pool entrance was flanked by two stainless steel sculptures created by Emil Siebern, which depicted female athletes. The lobby between the main and pool entrances is open to the outdoors and contains a brick floor surrounded by bluestone and granite. The ceiling of the lobby contains concrete beams. The octagonal ticket booth at the center of the lobby has a nautical theme, with an outwardly angled terrazzo base, a ticket collector's cage, and a ventilation cupola on the roof. The north and south walls are divided into three bays and contain the women's and men's locker rooms. These bays contain glass bricks at the top and openings or doorways at the bottom. Above the center bays on each side are Art Deco-style aluminum letters indicating the respective genders' locker rooms.
The bathhouse pavilions are similar in design. The east facade is fifteen bays wide, while the west facade is seventeen bays wide. Except for the central bay on each side, there are openings with glass blocks topped by metal louvers; these are separated by fluted brick piers. At the northern and southern ends of the west facade, there are semicircular coves with doorways that lead to the bathhouse's locker rooms. The eastern wings of the bathhouse, to the north and south of the entrance court, each contain two bays of horizontal glass-brick bands. The roof of the bathhouse pavilion doubles as a viewing platform and contains a concrete deck and metal railing. The eastern portion of the roof is higher than the western portion. The roof contains two concrete ventilators above the main entrance. Upon the bathhouse's completion, Architectural Forum praised its use of glass bricks "for privacy and ease of maintenance".
History The park site formerly contained Pot Cove, a Native American settlement used for maize cultivation and fishing. The name also applies to the small cove next to the park's southwestern corner. The settlement's namesake may have been the Pot Rock within the Hell Gate; the rock was dynamited in 1876 as part of the removal of Hell Gate rocks. There were hills immediately above the Hell Gate shoreline, and several creeks emptied into the cove. One of these was Linden Brook, which flowed along the current path of Astoria Park South and into Pot Cove.
The surrounding land had numerous owners from the 17th to 19th centuries. The tracts were developed with the estates of wealthy businessmen such as Edwin Hoyt, Edward Woolsey, and Henry Barclay. Maps show that some streets had already been laid out on the future park site by the late 19th century. The surrounding Astoria neighborhood was part of the independent city of Long Island City, which was combined into the City of Greater New York in 1898. Augustus D. Juilliard began combining the various properties for the future site of Astoria Park in 1872. As the lots were purchased, the estates on the site were largely demolished by the 1890s.
Creation and early years
The East River Land Company acquired south of 24th Avenue from Augustus Juilliard, as well as to the north from James Barclay, in 1905. This was part of the acquisition of some on the Hell Gate shorefront, comprising over 2,000 lots. In 1907, the New York Connecting Railroad (NYCN) bought from the East River Land Company for a right-of-way to build the Hell Gate Bridge through Astoria Park's site. The bridge, opened in 1917, was part of a railroad line from the new Pennsylvania Station to New York City's northeastern suburbs. Also in 1907, the city government was slated to pay the East River Land Company $200,000 for nine hundred lots totaling . However, the city balked on acquiring the land, contending that the selling price was too high and citing the company's decision to grant the NYCN an easement. The city's hesitancy was attributed to the Panic of 1907, which had worsened the city's finances.
By 1913, residents of Manhattan and Long Island City were again calling for the creation of a park along the Astoria waterfront. The site was just north of the Astoria ferry landing, where service ran to Manhattan. That July, the New York City Board of Estimate authorized a park to be laid out on the plot between the East River, Ditmars Boulevard, 19th Street, and Hoyt Avenue. The projected $1.5 million cost would be paid by tax assessments placed on residents of Queens, Brooklyn, and Manhattan, as well as an extra assessment on people living in the immediate area. At the time, the northern portion of the park contained the Barclay mansion, a brick building measuring , while the southern portion contained three unidentified structures. A corps of engineers was hired to draw plans for the new park. The city acquired in October 1913, and shortly afterward, the Board of Estimate renamed the park for mayor William Jay Gaynor. Many residents preferred to name the park for the Astoria neighborhood, and it was officially renamed Astoria Park in December 1913.