Webster Playground

E. 188 St. bet. Webster Ave. and Park Ave.

Bronx

Directions via Google Maps

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

This playground is named for nearby Webster Avenue. The avenue opened to East 184th Street in 1879, and in 1882 the avenue was extended to Fordham Road.

There are three noted figures for whom the avenue may have been named. Joseph Outen Bogart Webster (b.1919) surveyed the road, and Albert L. Webster (1859-1930) worked for New York City’s Department of Public Works during the road’s lengthening. It is also possible that the name is not local and honors U.S. lawyer and statesman Daniel Webster (1782-1852).

On May 23, 1870, the surveyor Joseph O.B. Webster began 40 years of work as a topographical engineer for New York City. He worked as a consultant for the Borough President of Manhattan, surveying and laying out new streets. Webster also belonged to the Sons of the American Revolution, the organization for male descendants of those who fought in the Revolutionary War (1776-1783).

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