Washington Square Park

The Daily Plant : Monday, September 8, 2003

WALTON PARK'S BASKETBALL COURT SCORES SLAM DUNK RENOVATION

The U.S. Open may have been rained out a couple of days last week, but the soggy weather did not cast a cloud on Parks & Recreation’s latest groundbreaking in the Bronx. On Wednesday, September 3, with umbrellas held high, Parks & Recreation Commissioner Adrian Benepe joined City Council Member Maria Baez to break ground for a new basketball court in Walton Park.

At the event, Commissioner Benepe, thanked City Council Member Baez for supporting the parks in her district. The Council Member has recently allocated funds to help renovate nearby Morris Garden. She also lent her support to the Crotona legislation which will bring clean water to all New Yorkers, hundreds of jobs to the Bronx and over $200 million to Bronx parks.

Walton Park’s basketball court will have a whole new game thanks to a $110,688 renovation. Basketball lovers will soon be able to practice their jump shot at the brand new basketball courts complete with color seal coating. New trees will be planted and the park's entrance will be reconstructed for all to enjoy. Mayor Bloomberg allocated the funds for the project, along with a grant from the New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development.

This .34 acre park is named in honor of Mary Walton (ca.1726-1794). In 1749, Mary Walton married Lewis Morris III (1726-1798), the only New Yorker to sign the Declaration of Independence. The couple had 10 children and lived in the southwest Bronx neighborhood of Morrisania. According to historians, Lewis Morris found Morrisania so beautiful that he sent a letter to the Continental Congress recommending it be made the capital of the United States.

Assembly Member Luis Diaz and District Manager of Community Board 5, Xavier Rodriguez, along with Deputy Inspector Thomas Gollati and Police Officer Daniel Guadalupe from NYPD's 46th Precinct showed their support. Representatives from Fordham Bedford Housing and Ferreira Brothers Contractor also braved the rain to celebrate the groundbreaking of Walton Park.

Walton Park is expected to sport its new look in a few months, weather permitting.

From an early scene in Henry James’ "Washington Square," in which Morris Townsend, the pushy suitor of our heroine, Catherine Sloper, has just proposed a secret meeting in Washington Square Park:

"You must come to the house," she said. "I am not afraid of that."

"I would rather it were in the Square," the young man urged. "You know how empty it is, often. No one will see us."

"I don't care who sees us. But leave me now."

He left her resignedly; he had got what he wanted. Fortunately, he was ignorant that half an hour later, going home with her father, and feeling him near, the poor girl, in spite of her sudden declaration of courage, began to tremble again. Her father said nothing; but she had an idea his eyes were fixed upon her in the darkness. Mrs. Penniman also was silent; Morris Townsend had told her that her niece preferred, unromantically, an interview in a chintz-covered parlor to a sentimental tryst beside a fountain sheeted with dead leaves, and she was lost in wonderment at the oddity--almost the perversity--of the choice.

"It is always darketh just before the day dawneth."

(1608-1661)