Vesuvio Playground
85 Thompson Street | SoHo | built 1934
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The city photographed every building for its tax records around 1940 and again in the 1980s. NYC Municipal Archives.
Written with AI from the source each entry cites, then fact-checked.
- 1934
Robert Moses's Parks Department builds a playground here after demolishing five tenements
Vesuvio Playground began in 1934 as a mid-block park under Parks Commissioner Robert Moses. Aymar Embury II, a consulting architect for the department, designed it. To make room the city demolished five tenements, and Embury's original plan included a one-story brick and limestone recreation center.
- 1958
The playground grows to Spring Street, replacing a mission hall and an 1824 church
In 1958 the city enlarged the park to Spring and Sullivan Streets and made it an all-ages playground. Clearing the land took down a factory, two garages and two tenements. Among the buildings razed on this ground were Spring Street Hall, which hosted three mission societies, and the Second Methodist Protestant Church at 99-101 Sullivan Street, built in 1824 and a church until 1867.
- 2007
A $2.9 million renovation finishes the park, now named for a neighborhood bakery
The Parks Department bought the land in pieces in 1929, 1930 and 1957. A $2.9 million renovation was completed in 2007. The park, once called Thompson Street Playground, was later named for the Vesuvio Bakery on Prince Street, honoring its owner, though city policy barred naming a park for a living person. It has basketball, handball and bocce courts.
“The park was named to honor the owner of the bakery; it could not be named after him because Parks Department policy prohibited naming parks after living persons.”
Source: Wikipedia
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