St. Vartan’s Park

St. Vartan’s Park. 2.759 acres. , St. Vartan’s Park, between East 35th and 36th Streets on Second Avenue, is named for the St. Vartan Cathedral of the Armenian Orthodox Church in America. Vartan was an Armenian who lived during the fourth century, remembered for his martyrdom at the Battle of Avarayr in 451AD between Armenian and Iranian forces in present-day Albania., In June 1897, Mayor William L. Strong (1827–1900) appointed an advisory committee that became known as the Small Parks Commission. That commission selected this site for a park in 1901, and they acquired the land through condemnation two years later. This park opened as St. Gabriel’s Park in 1904, named for nearby St. Gabriel Church formerly at 310 East 37th Street. The park was reconstructed in 1936, and a playground, wading pool, roller skating track, and courts for handball, shuffleboard, and horseshoe pitching were added, as well as a field house and comfort station., In 1938, shortly after the park was renovated, part of the land was surrendered to the Board of Estimate. This was part of an agreement with the New York City Tunnel Authority to make way for an approach to the Queens-Midtown Tunnel completed in 1940. The park’s trees, benches, and playground areas were relocated as the approach road cut the park in two, and decreased the parkland by nearly a quarter acre. In exchange, the Tunnel Authority agreed to improve nearby parks and playgrounds in the vicinity of 42nd Street., By 1951, residents of the congested neighborhood had succeeded in restoring the playground areas lost when the tunnel approach was built. The renovation added a sand pit, jungle gym, and seesaws as well as a 16-foot-high fence separating the ball field and the children’s playground. In 1978 the property was renamed St. Vartan Park., A 1984 renovation remodeled the park’s 1936 field house and playground. The building serves as a program center for preschoolers, teens, and seniors. The renovation added safety surfacing, benches, water fountains, game tables, a sprinkler, a small concrete amphitheater, and timberform play equipment. More than 9,200 shrubs were planted, including Japanese barberry, firethorn, baltic ivy, rhododendron, and forsythia. Saucer magnolia and honey locust trees were also planted at the site., The 1984 renovation was privately funded, a harbinger of a new era of creative financing to aid the City’s park system, which suffered in the wake of the City's 1970s fiscal crisis. The Glick Organization contributed $900,000 to enhance the site. “This is my favorite kind of dedication,” Mayor Edward I. Koch noted at the park’s reopening, “one where a city park has been rebuilt without a penny of city money.” , A World War I Memorial Flagpole, dedicated in 1936 and donated by the Murray Hill Post No. 56 veterans group, stands in the park to commemorate soldiers from the neighborhood who died in World War I. Council Member Andrew S. Eristoff funded a $520,000 reconstruction of the playground in 2001. This supplements a $179,000 renovation that he funded in 1999 that repaired the site’s sidewalks and paved areas. Today the park serves this eastside neighborhood well, and stands as a fitting tribute to the power of diverse interests that come together fro the good of the community., City of New York Parks and Recreation , Michael R. Bloomberg, Mayor , Veronica M. White, Commissioner , November 2001