During the opening decades of the 20th Century, the city’s parks became the sites of outdoor concerts, historical pageants and highly popular interborough athletics. Farm gardens introduced urban children to country living and neighborhood parks soon replaced the streets as gathering places. Starting in the 1930s, under the direction Robert Moses – first sole commissioner of a unified Department of Parks for New York City – hundreds of new playgrounds were built and many and formerly industrialized waterfront and other properties were either returned to or retained in their natural state. By the time Moses left office in 1960, the parks system had nearly tripled in size, thanks largely to the New Deal and subsequent federal funding, as well as Moses’ organizational genius.

Unfortunately, during the 1970s and 1980s, New York City’s economic ups and downs, coupled with unceasing commercial and residential development, put great pressure on its public parks – several of which slowly fell into decline. However, the 1990s gave rise to an increase in concern regarding the condition the city’s parks on the part of individuals and private groups – a leading voice among which was Bette Midler and New York Restoration Project (NYRP) – who emphasized that these spaces should be regarded not only as civic rights, but moreover as amenities without which the city would be a poorer place.

On Earth Day 2007, New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg unveiled PlaNYC, his ambitious 127-point blueprint for a more sustainable city by the year 2030 – which includes the creation of more open spaces to ensure that every New Yorker lives within a 10-minute walk of a park, as well as establishing a goal to plant one million new trees citywide in partnership with Ms. Midler and NYRP. With the vision and resources provided by PlaNYC, the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation and Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe have launched the most ambitious parks program in half a century – following in the footsteps of past visionaries and advocates for the city’s park’s system, including Frederick Law Olmsted, Robert Moses and Henry J. Stern.

Today, through the efforts of both these past and current champions, parks like Fort Washington Park, Fort Tryon Park and Highbridge Park attract hundreds of thousands of visitors to their recovered pathways, restored community gardens and revitalized meadows and glades every year – as was the original intent of their creators. And, newly created green spaces – like NYRP’s centerpiece Swindler Cove Park – prove that no forgotten or neglected plot is beyond redemption and worth in a city where concrete otherwise rules.