Stretching 13 blocks through the Harlem and Morningside Heights neighborhood, Morningside Park features everything from playgrounds to walking paths to monuments. Located in the heart of Manhattan in New York City, it highlights what it can mean for a park to trandform a space and positively impact a community.
Rock Outcroppings, Sculptures, Exercise Paths and More
The extremely steep terrain and rugged cliffs of what would become the borough of Manhattan would come to define the Morningside Park. Taking its name from how the sun rises on the eastern side of the park to expose visitors to light in the early morning hours, plans for a park were put together but then rejected in the late 1800s. Eventually, they’d be revised with concepts for a promenade and buttressed masonry wall that would define the park. A 30 foot-wide walkway was constructed as a series of esplanades, linked by steps, with semi-octagonal bays to provide visitors with places to rest and to enjoy the view.
As it grew and changed over the decades, the park received sporting fields and playgrounds between the 1930s and the 1950s. The park’s natural elements have been enhanced from the planting of vegetation that is tolerant of the dry, rocky environment. It contains several sporting fields with two baseball fields and a basketball court at the southern end of the park.
While the terrain of Morningside Park is especially distinct, the Carl Schurz Memorial, as well as the Bear and Faun Fountain, have given the community icons that provide the park with an especially distinct identity. These pieces are in addition to the trails, paths and fields that have made it an essential element of the modern community.
Trails like the Serenity Stroll, Power Path and Energy Circuit are just a few examples of the means of direct community engagement that Morningside Park has cultivated. These defined paths are in addition to the countless indirect ways that the park has become an essential element of the neighborhood and city by transforming what might otherwise be empty space into a n essential elements of the community.
Transforming the Terrain the Benefit a Community
Featuring a challenging terrain that has been transformed to benefit the community, Morningside Park has created an identity that numerous individuals and organizations utilize in direct and indirect ways. This transformation of the space has opened up opportunities for residents and cultivated the attention of visitors from across the city and beyond.
