THE PARKS 57 



There are seventeen named parks in the Borough, with a 

 total of 3,916 acres, besides numerous unnamed grounds open to 

 the public. The Bronx has 1,148 more acreage of park lands, 

 including the parkways, than all the other boroughs combined. 

 They are so evenly distributed thruout the Borough that they 

 are within the reach of all and afford ample pleasure grounds for 

 the multitudes. 



The parks and parkways of The Bronx extend from one end 

 of the Borough to the other. Beginning with the most westerly 

 park limit there is the Spuyten Duyvil Parkway, beginning at the 

 junction of Spuyten Duyvil Creek and the Hudson River, and wind- 

 ing over the hills and thru the valleys until it intersects Van 

 Cortlandt Park at Two Hundred Seventy-second Street. This park- 

 way is intended to be a connecting link, in time, between the system 

 of parkways in The Bronx and those in Manhattan by means of a 

 viaduct over the Spuyten Duyvil Creek, to connect with a similar 

 parkway leading along the western side of Manhattan, which will 

 be an extension of Riverside Drive and Boulevard Lafayette. 



Going easterly thru Van Cortlandt Park, we enter the 

 Mosholu Parkway, which leads directly to Bronx Park. Crossing 

 Bronx Park, and still going easterly we enter The Bronx and 

 Pelham Parkway, which brings us over to the great Pelham Bay 

 Park, and following along the roadway thru Pelham Bay Park 

 leads us up to the northerly limits of the City, and out into the town 

 of Pelham Manor and New Rochelle. 



The largest of these parks are: Pelham Bay, Van Cortlandt, 

 and Bronx Parks. These three alone cover 3,608 acres. Other 

 parks in the Borough include Claremont, Crotona, De Voe, Joseph 

 Rodman Drake, Echo, Sigel, Macomb's Dam, Poe, St. James, St. 

 Mary's, University and Washington Bridge. 



Pelham Bay, the largest of the parks, is twice the size of 

 Central Park, and contains large tracts of woodland with nine 

 miles of water front. It has a fine athletic field and parade ground, 

 an 18-hole golf course, and also two excellent bathing beaches. 

 Here we have located a tent city, named Orchard Beach, where 

 families and clubs erect their tents and spend the summer in the 

 open air under the supervision of the Park Department. 



It was in this park that Thomas Pell signed an important 

 treaty with two Siwanoy Indian sachems in 1654, which made 

 him lord of all that region. An iron fence that once surrounded 



