The reason Morningside Park became a park

Morningside Park became a park for one inconvenient reason: 19th century park administrators believed the craggy peaks of Manhattan schist were too steep and rugged for the city to pave over.

“In 1867 Andrew Haswell Green, Commissioner and Comptroller of Central Park, recommended that a park be located in Morningside Heights. He argued that it would be ‘very expensive’ and ‘very inconvenient’ to extend the Manhattan street grid over the area’s severe topography,” states nycgovparks.org.

Opened in the 1880s, Morningside still has a Victorian-era feel. Too bad St. Luke’s Hospital building no longer rises high over the park as it does in this circa-1900 postcard.

The Peters of Second Avenue’s Peter’s Field

There’s a city park between First and Second Avenue and East 20th and 21st Streets that isn’t remarkable in any way—except for its curious name of Peter’s Field.

So who was Peter? Petrus Stuyvesant (right), the Dutch director-general of New Netherlands who ruled the city until 1664.

The park name is a play on the name of Stuyvesant’s sprawling farm, or Bouwerie, which once encompassed this location: Petersfield.

Of course, Stuyvesant graces a ton of other landmarks in the area: Stuyvesant Town, Stuyvesant High School (the original building), and Stuyvesant Square.

Peter’s Field also commemorates another famous Peter who lived in the neighborhood: Peter Cooper. He’s the Kips Bay glue manufacturer, founder of Cooper Union in 1859, and namesake of Peter Cooper Village.

Ah, but the little park pays homage to more Peters. Cast concrete plaques put up in the 1990s on the Second Avenue side honor Peter Rabbit, Peter Pan, Peter Piper, Peter Parker, and other fictional characters who share Stuyvesant and Cooper’s name.