Building type
Play centers, pools, and recreation facilities that make public leisure part of the landmark story.
Pools and play centers bring public recreation into Manhattan’s architectural history. Compare their entrances, changing facilities, and relationship to the surrounding park space.
10 building histories
Recreational · 1895-97
325 East 73rd Street, New York, NY
Bohemian National Hall (Nirodni Budova) is a rare survivor of the social halls built in the nineteenth century for New York City's immigrant ethnic communities. Constructed in two phases in 1895 and 1897, it replaced an...
Read the storyRecreational · 1929-30
19 West Street, New York, NY
This 35-story, Art Deco skyscraper opened in 1930 as the Downtown Athletic Club. A membership association geared toward businessmen and lawyers who worked in lower Manhattan, the Downtown Athletic Club was founded in...
Read the storyRecreational · 1894-95
190 3rd Avenue, New York, NY
Dating from 1894-95, the (former) Scheffel Hall is a significant reminder of the German-American community known as Kleindeutschland which flourished on the Lower East Side in the last half of the nineteenth century....
Read the storyRecreational · 1906-11
348 East 54th Street, New York, NY
The East 54th Street Bath, the 12th of 13 Free Public Baths of the City of New York opened in Manhattan, is culturally significant for its part in the history of the progressive reform movement in America. An 1895 state...
Read the storyRecreational · 1904-05
538 East 11th Street, New York, NY
A highly intact work of prominent architect Arnold W. Brunner, the Free Public Baths of the City of New York, East 11th Street Bath at 538 East 11th Street is also culturally significant for its part in the histories of...
Read the storyRecreational · 1898-1900
130 Pitt Street, New York, NY
The Hamilton Fish Park Play Center is among the most notable small civic buildings in New York City. Designed in 1898 by Carrere & Hastings, one of America's foremost architectural firms at the turn of the century, this...
Read the storyRecreational · 1934-36
Amsterdam Avenue & West 172nd Street, New York, NY
The Highbridge Play Center is one of a group of eleven immense outdoor swimming pools opened in the summer of 1936 in a series of grand ceremonies presided over by Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia and Park Commissioner Robert...
Read the storyRecreational · 1935-37
85 Bradhurst Avenue, New York, NY
The Jackie Robinson Play Center is one of a group of eleven immense outdoor swimming pools opened in the summer of 1936 in a series of grand ceremonies presided over by Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia and Park Commissioner...
Read the storyRecreational · 1904-06
383 Asser Levy Place, New York, NY
The Public Baths were built between 1904 and 1906 by the City of New York. The building was designed by Arnold W. Brunner and william Martin Aiken, asso-ciated architects for this project. Public baths were a necessity...
Read the storyRecreational · 1935-36
1st Ave & E 111th St, New York, NY
The Thomas Jefferson Play Center is one of a group of eleven immense outdoor swimming pools opened in the summer of 1936 in a series of grand ceremonies presided over by Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia and Park Commissioner...
Read the story