page_title: Sunset Park (Brooklyn park)
section_title: Early history
hierarchical_section_title: Sunset Park (Brooklyn park) / History / Early history
caption_attribution_description: Looking westward from the Sunset Park in Brooklyn
context_page_description: Sunset Park is a 24.5-acre public park in the neighborhood of Sunset Park, Brooklyn, New York City, between 41st and 44th Streets and 5th and 7th Avenues. The modern-day park contains a playground, recreation center, and pool. The recreation center and pool comprise the Sunset Play Center, which was designated as both an exterior and interior landmark by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission. The park is operated by the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation, also known as NYC Parks.
  The land for the park was acquired in 1891 through 1905. The park initially contained a pond, golf course, rustic shelter, and carousel. These features were removed in 1935–1936 when the current neoclassical/Art Deco style pool was built by Aymar Embury II during a Works Progress Administration project. The swimming pool and play center were renovated from 1983 to 1984.
context_section_description: Sunset Park originally consisted of four blocks of land, from Fifth to Seventh Avenues between 41st and 43rd Streets. The city of Brooklyn acquired the land on May 15, 1891, as part of its plan to build several parks citywide, including Winthrop, Bedford and Bushwick parks. The previous landowner was Patrick H. Flynn, a contractor who, according to the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, "sold the park department the site for the proposed Sunset Park in the Eighth Ward without consulting the owners. Then he went around and bought up the property at a low figure and is said to have made a good thing out of it." The Eagle itself praised the site as having "one of the finest views in the city". A New York Times reporter, writing in 1894, praised the "magnificent views of earth and sky and water" that could be experienced from the high point of Sunset Park, some 200 feet (61 m) above sea level.
  Sunset Park became a popular gathering place for residents of the area (then considered part of Bay Ridge and South Brooklyn), and its initial users were mostly Polish and Scandinavian immigrants who had arrived within the last two decades. However, development of the park was precluded by its irregular topography. By 1893, the city of Brooklyn decided to expand Sunset Park southward. A Times article that year observed that the park lacked amenities and was situated on high bluffs that could only be reached by 60-foot ladders. Furthermore, the article stated that it would cost at least $500,000 to improve the park. In 1899, the city of New York constructed a six-hole golf course in Sunset Park, and started some other improvements such as installing retaining walls. Even so, the Eagle observed that the park was still lacking basic amenities such as benches or drinking fountains. The park was expanded southward to 44th Street in 1904.  Other features added in the first decade of the 20th century included a new landscaping, a pond, a Neoclassical rustic shelter, and a carousel. Concerts started being held by 1906, and a grand staircase to Fifth Avenue was completed by 1910.
  The surrounding neighborhood, located south of Green-Wood Cemetery and east of Fourth Avenue, was mostly undeveloped at the time. After the Fifth Avenue elevated line was extended south from 36th Street to 65th Street on October 1, 1893, development came rapidly. Residential construction boomed in the late 19th and early 20th century amid real estate speculation initiated by the construction of the park and the Fifth Avenue elevated line, and by 1909, there was significant development surrounding the park. With the news that the New York City Subway's Fourth Avenue Line would constructed in the area, two-story houses were constructed on the south side of Sunset Park. Two-story houses were the most common housing stock in this part of South Brooklyn at the time; the Eagle said that two-family houses were "particularly attractive to people who desire comparatively small apartments, but who object to living in flats, and they appeal to this class on account of their being more quiet, and possibly, more exclusive." The Fourth Avenue subway opened to 59th Street in 1915, further spurring the growth of the surrounding neighborhood as a low-rise middle-class area, and in particular the Finnish enclave directly south of the park.
caption: Looking northwest from Sunset Park
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