Ravenswood Playground

This text is part of Parks’ Historical Signs Project and can be found posted within the park.

What was here before?

This was once the site of Colonel George Gibbs’s (1776-1833) estate which included a mansion and farmlands overlooking the East River. Gibbs was a mineralogist whose collection can be found at the Yale Peabody Museum. Originally from Newport, Rhode Island, he bought property in this area in 1814 that was once called Sunswick, which is believed to be the Algonquin word for “woman chief” or “Sachem’s wife”. After Gibbs died in 1833, three developers divided his land into nine estates.

How did this site become a playground?

The City of New York acquired this land in 1949 on behalf of the New York City Housing Authority for the Ravenswood Houses. The Housing Authority drew up plans to construct a community playground on the land and surrendered the property to NYC Parks in 1952. Months later, Ravenswood Houses Playground opened, equipped with basketball, handball and shuffleboard courts, an ice skating area, a softball field, swings, jungle gyms, and a sandpit.

In 1987 NYC Parks shortened the name to simply Ravenswood Playground. The playground adjoins the Ravenswood Houses, one of the city’s largest housing projects.

The playground was rebuilt in 2022 with new multigenerational play areas, spray showers, and an adult fitness area.

Who is this playground named for?

This playground is named after Ravenswood, the shoreside Long Island City neighborhood in which it resides. In 1831, Reverend Francis Lister Hawks (1798-1866) moved from South Carolina to New York and began work at St. Stephen’s Church in Manhattan before he moved to Flushing, Queens in 1832 to work at St. Thomas Church for 12 years. Reverend Hawks stumbled on the area in the 1830s and named it Ravenscroft after his friend and fellow clergyman, John Stark Ravenscroft (1772-1830). Years went by, and the settlement deteriorated significantly. Hawks reconsidered having his friend’s name attached to such a location, and renamed it Ravenswood, a linguistic sleight-of-hand; Ravenswood and Ravenscroft bear the same meaning, as “croft” means “wood” in Middle English.