Seton Park

What was here before? 
This was the site of Seton Hospital, a tuberculosis hospital, which was opened in 1895 by the Sisters of Charity. Tuberculosis, a highly contagious disease, peaked in the 1800s. After World War II vaccination reduced its death rates by 90%. The need for such hospitals declined and Seton closed in 1955.

How did this site become a park? 
This property was vacant until 1958, when the Department of Hospitals relinquished jurisdiction of the land to the Board of Estimate, which conveyed it to Parks a year later in 1959. In the late 1960s, Parks drew up plans for a substantial recreational facility on the property. Constructed by the Whitler Contracting Company, Seton Park opened in the mid-1970s.

In 2019 the baseball fields were renovated and in 2024, a skate park and adult fitness area were added to the park along with tennis and basketball courts, soccer fields, and playground.

Who is this park named for? 
This park, like the hospital that stood here, is named for Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton (1774-1821), also known as Mother Seton.

Born on Staten Island, Seton was the daughter of the prominent physician Richard Bayley. In 1794, she married William Magee Seton, a successful Manhattan merchant. Her involvement with social work inspired her to found the Society for the Relief of Poor Widows and Children in 1797.

Seton converted from Episcopalian to Roman Catholic in 1803 after her husband’s death and was baptized at St. Peter’s Church on Barclay Street in Manhattan. Seton took her five children to Baltimore to open a school for girls in 1808. After taking her vows, Seton formed the American Sisters of Charity in Emmitsburg in 1809, the first Roman Catholic religious order in the United States. Although Seton never returned to New York, the Sisters of Charity opened the Roman Catholic Orphan Asylum in the City in 1817, four years before she died. They also had a church in what is now the northern end of Central Park before relocating to the Bronx.

Seton is commemorated as the first American-born saint of the Roman Catholic Church. She was beatified in 1963, and her canonization was announced on September 14, 1976. In addition to this park, Bayley Seton Hospital in Staten Island, Seton Falls Park, the Elizabeth Seton Campus of Iona College in the Bronx, and Seton Hall University in South Orange, New Jersey bear her name.