Longfellow Playground

Longfellow Playground. .367 acre. , This Bronx park honors one of the most notable American poets of the 19th century, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882)., Born in Portland, Massachusetts (now Maine), Henry Longfellow graduated from Bowdoin College in 1825. After graduation he spent several years in Europe learning French, Spanish, and Italian. In 1829, he returned to Bowdoin to take a professorship of modern languages, where he edited textbooks, wrote essays on foreign literature, and translated vast amounts of poetry and prose. In 1835, Longfellow visited Germany and became enchanted by the German Romanticist movement, a literary fusion of philosophy, poetry, and politics aimed at exploring human emotion. Some of Longfellow's most memorable works are Hyperion (1883), Voices of the Night (1839), Evangeline (1847) and The Song of Hiawatha (1885). He died on March 4, 1882., The Longfellow Garden, was assigned to NYC Parks by the City on December 19, 1997. Bounded by east 165th Street, Longfellow Avenue, and Lowell Street, it served as a community garden with three different levels. Longfellow Garden was closed for more than ten years due to structural safety concerns, but reopened in 2018 with the new name Longfellow Playground., This site is part of Parks' Community Parks Initiative, a multifaceted program to invest in under-resourced public parks and increase the accessibility and quality of parks throughout the five boroughs. This project completely reconstructed the park, adding a playground with tree house motif, mini stage, spray shower, new seating areas, bike racks, a new fence, lighting, landscaping and greenery. To manage stormwater runoff, green infrastructure was added throughout Longfellow Playground. This initiative ensures that the park remains an enjoyable neighborhood amenity for Bronx families for years to come.