There's a charming children's playground right off of 5th Avenue at 130th Street that had us wondering what could have stood on such a large plot of land before such a thing was popular to build for the public. We found some old photos circa 1932 of the Mott Mansion which sat right in the middle of a gated block that the Courtney Callendar Playground sits on today. The victorian building with the mansard roof and cresting up top must have held court in this part of town when all of the estates had wide plots of land and were spaced far apart. By the mid 1930's, the mansion was surrounded by apartment buildings and attached brownstones which probably had something to do with its eventual demolition in 1936. We are not sure if anything else was built on the land or if the city had intended to make the property into a park all along. It's a shame for it would have been a great reminder of the mansion estates of old Harlem had it survived.
Archival courtesy of NYPL. Current photo by Ulysses.
There's a charming children's playground right off of 5th Avenue at 130th Street that had us wondering what could have stood on such a large plot of land before such a thing was popular to build for the public. We found some old photos circa 1932 of the Mott Mansion which sat right in the middle of a gated block that the Courtney Callendar Playground sits on today. The victorian building with the mansard roof and cresting up top must have held court in this part of town when all of the estates had wide plots of land and were spaced far apart. By the mid 1930's, the mansion was surrounded by apartment buildings and attached brownstones which probably had something to do with its eventual demolition in 1936. We are not sure if anything else was built on the land or if the city had intended to make the property into a park all along. It's a shame for it would have been a great reminder of the mansion estates of old Harlem had it survived. Archival courtesy of NYPL. Current photo by Ulysses.
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