Wakefield Playground

What was here before?

Matilda Feth, a possible namesake for Matilda Avenue which makes up the eastern boundary of this site, was a local landowner around 1900. Her holdings included property along this avenue at East 241st Street. Carpenter Avenue, the western boundary of this playground, was named for Stephen V.R. Carpenter, another landowner in the area who purchased his land from Mary Duryea in 1868. By the 1940s, the area was populated with detached and semi-detached single-family homes.

How did this site become a playground?

This site was assigned to the Board of Education in 1956 for the purposes of building a school and recreation facilities, and the lot was cleared of buildings in 1957. When the playground opened in 1959, it was called P.S. 16 Playground for the adjacent school. This playground is a Jointly Operated Playground (JOP) serving P.S. 16 Wakefield and the local community. Beginning in 1938, the Board of Education (now the Department of Education) agreed to provide land next to schools where NYC Parks could build and maintain playgrounds that could be used by the school during the day and by the public when school is not in session. In the 1990s, a mini-school was built upon a large asphalt yard behind P.S. 16 on Matilda Avenue.

The playground has two levels which will be renovated in 2022. The lower level on Carpenter Avenue, will include two areas with new play equipment and a spray shower, in addition to an existing public restroom. The upper level, which abuts Matilda Avenue, will include two basketball courts and a painted junior soccer field with an additional entrance to increase safety. An ADA-accessible ramp now connects both levels. Formed in 2015, the Friends of Wakefield Playground provides additional programming and care for this site.

What is this playground named for?

The playground was renamed Wakefield Playground in 1987, after the surrounding neighborhood. The first part of this area to be surveyed—now Wakefield Square at East 222nd Street and Bronxdale Avenue—was named in 1853 for George Washington’s (1732-1799) birthplace of Wakefield, Virginia. Two years later, the rest of the region was surveyed and became the separate Village of Wakefield. This village’s boundaries were the Bronx River on the west, Laconia Avenue on the east, East 215th Street on the south, and East 233rd Street on the north. In 1895, however, the City of New York purchased the part of the Bronx east of the Bronx River. Wakefield, which had formerly been part of Westchester County, was incorporated into the rest of the city. Upon annexation, Wakefield was extended to East 238th Street, and later further north to East 243rd Street. These border extensions encompassed Jacksonville and Washingtonville respectively.