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The 1956 Battle of Central Park pitted New York City Park Commissioner Robert Moses against more than 50 mothers and their children on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. At issue was a half-acre wooded site on the edge of Central Park, next to the West 67th Street Playground, which Moses wanted to redevelop to include an 80-car parking lot for the restaurant Tavern on the Green. Skirting sit-downs and other protests, Moses surreptitiously began having trees felled; the ensuing furor led to State Supreme Court Justice Samuel Hofstadter issuing a temporary injunction. Following further legal action, including two lawsuits, Moses abandoned the plan. Instead, the West 67th Street Playground designed by Richard Dattner became the first free-standing Adventure Playground in 1967 and was followed by the adjacent space, now called the Tarr-Coyne Tots Playground, built on the site of the 1956 protest, in 1968.

History

Frederick Law Olmsted, Sr., and Calvert Vaux’s “Greensward” plan was chosen for New York’s precedent-setting, publicly funded, urban park in 1857. Their proposal, with pastoral meadows and Picturesque woodlands, was designed as a place of respite for city residents. They were criticized in the press, while the park was under construction in 1858, for not including a play area for children, so Olmsted and Vaux added a “Children’s District” mid-park at 65th Street. It embodied nineteenth century ideas about children’s recreation and included: “the Dairy,” where children could buy milk and other refreshments; “the Kinderberg Shelter,” a large wooden structure that provided shade and seating; and a playground with a meadow with wooden swings, seesaws, and a small building with athletic equipment.

By 1926, wear and tear on the playground created pressure for repairs. That year philanthropist August Heckscher funded the installation of a wading pool, play equipment, and open space. Now known as the Heckscher Playground, it is located mid-park between 61st and 63rd streets, on the periphery of the original “Children’s District.” Its placement, landscape architect Hermann Merkel noted in 1926, preserved park views and thus the overall feeling of Olmsted and Vaux’s original design.

During the pervasive financial hardship of the Great Depression, the election of Mayor Fiorello La Guardia in 1934 ushered in a new era of public investment that reshaped New York. One of the mayor’s first initiatives included equipping play areas in Central Park, which his appointed Park Commissioner, Robert Moses, and landscape architect Gilmore Clarke began planning with funds from the Works Progress Administration.

Seven years later, Moses had incorporated twenty new playgrounds, eighteen of which were located along the park’s perimeter to facilitate easy access for nearby residents, including one at West 67th Street. Though created as play spaces, an emphasis was placed on using durable materials to withstand heavy use, which resulted in playgrounds that were asphalt-paved and sparsely furnished. Each one was staffed with several full-time attendants who oversaw play activities. Despite evolving ideas about the importance of play to children’s psychological development, the playgrounds were never updated during Moses’ tenure at the Parks Department. Ultimately it would be a playground dispute that marked the beginning of the end for Moses’ career.

Mothers vs. Moses

In 1956, Moses planned to build a parking lot in a wooded area for the Tavern on the Green restaurant adjacent to the West 67th Street Playground. Many local mothers let their children play in the wooded lot because the neighboring playground had a set of stairs that prevented stroller access and limited equipment for older children.

When the mothers learned that the lot would be cleared, they occupied the site along with their children and dogs; they set up chairs and refused to leave. Local newspapers dubbed the protest “The Battle of Central Park.” After a week of being thwarted by women the New York Times referred to as “six housewives,” one night Moses ordered that the site be fenced off and called in police to issue restraining orders as distraught protestors arrived. As a construction crew cut down trees, photographers documented the reactions of the mothers, which were published in newspapers the following day. In response to Moses’ intransigence, the women filed a taxpayer’s suit, arguing that the proposed parking lot (for a restaurant most park visitors couldn’t afford) was a questionable use of public parkland. As public opinion turned on Moses in favor of the mothers who had advocated for a space for their children, the city’s corporation counsel reached an arrangement with the lawyer engaged by the mothers to delay the case until the public outcry had dissipated so that Moses could announce he would build a playground in place of the parking lot.

Instead of restoring the wooded area, the Parks Department installed new play equipment atop the partially built parking lot, adjacent to the existing, little-used West 67th Street Playground. The Battle for Central Park represented a turning point in children’s recreation as the mothers successfully made their case for prioritizing children’s play areas over parking infrastructure, and their efforts laid the groundwork for further advocacy on behalf of the city’s children and the appropriate use of public parkland.

The same protest tactics were deployed again in October of the same year, when the Parks Department announced it could no longer fund full-time staff for Central Park playgrounds. A group of mothers who frequented a playground near West 110th Street gathered with signs highlighting their concerns but were prevented from picketing by police. While Moses’ tenure as commissioner expanded the city’s playgrounds from 119 to 777, his legacy was called into question by a growing number of people, including many who turned against him for defacing a beloved wooded glen, which one mother described as, “the center of our neighborhood.”