Gun Hill Playground

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

What was here before?
This parcel was part of the former estate of Lorillard Spencer (1860-1912), descendant of Pierre Abraham Lorillard (1742-1776), a French Huguenot merchant who started a prosperous tobacco company in 1760. The Lorillard estate made up a large portion of this area and Bronx Park. The family built the landmarked snuff mill that still stands in the New York Botanical Gardens. After Lorillard Spencer's death, his descendants partitioned the land into over 1,000 lots for sale in 1917 to benefit the family and the New York Public Library on Fifth Avenue.

Several two-story residences were built on this lot and remained for decades before they were condemned to make way for a new housing development in the 1940s.

How did this site become a playground?
The City of New York acquired the land for Gun Hill Houses and playground in 1948 by condemnation, and immediately transferred the property to the New York City Housing Authority. The playground opened on December 29, 1952 and was subsequently transferred to NYC Parks.

The playground contains a public restroom, seating, basketball and handball courts, play equipment for various ages, and a central spray shower.

Who is this playground named for?
This park and the nearby Gun Hill Houses are named for Gun Hill Road. The story of Gun Hill Road begins with the Mohegans, who used a Bronx River crossing here that they called "Cowangongh," meaning the "boundary beyond." When the British arrived in the Bronx in the mid-17th century, they widened the trail and built a crossing over the Spuyten Duyvil Creek, which they named Kingsbridge. Thereafter, the road and the settlement on the west side of the river took the name of the new bridge that linked Manhattan to the Bronx. This east-west thoroughfare was an important road during the Revolutionary War, and the Americans and British fought fiercely to control it. In January 1777, a small group of American soldiers dragged a cannon to the top of a hill west of the Bronx River and fired upon a British force below. That hill, which is now known as Gun Hill, stands inside Woodlawn Cemetery. The road was named Gun Hill Road around 1875, and it remains a major east-west traffic artery to this day, stretching from Van Cortlandt Park South to Pelham Bay Park.