Longfellow Playground

This Bronx garden honors one of the most notable American poets of the 19th century, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882).

Born in Portland, Massachusetts (now Maine), Henry Longfellow graduated from Bowdoin College in 1825. After graduation he spent several years in Europe learning French, Spanish, and Italian. In 1829, he returned to Bowdoin to take a professorship of modern languages, where he edited textbooks, wrote essays on foreign literature, and translated vast amounts of poetry and prose. In 1835, Longfellow visited Germany and became enchanted by the German Romanticist movement, a literary fusion of philosophy, poetry, and politics aimed at exploring human emotion. Some of Longfellow’s most memorable works are Voices of the Night (1840Α), Hyperion (1840Α), Evangeline (1847) and The Song of Hiawatha (1855). He died on March 4, 1882.

The Longfellow Garden, was assigned to Parks by the City on December 19, 1997. Bounded by East 165th Street, Longfellow Avenue, and Lowell Street, it serves as a community garden and has three different levels. Wooden benches surround the first level. The second level contains green pillars that form a walkway. The third and highest level features benches and sand pits.