40°50′48″N73°56′29″W / 40.84667°N 73.94139°W /40.84667; -73.94139
J. Hood Wright Park is a park of theNew York City Department of Parks and Recreation which is located betweenFort Washington andHaven Avenue, and betweenWest 173rd and176th Streets in theWashington Heights neighborhood ofManhattan,New York City. The 6.7 acres (2.7 ha) park includes a playground – which features a model of the nearbyGeorge Washington Bridge, which is visible from the park, basketball courts, ballfields, and a recreation center, as well as a dog walk, a cave in the natural rock formations which form the park's western boundary, and an installation of a piece of modern sculpture, "3000 AD Diffussion Piece" byTerry Fugate-Wilcox.[1]
The park is named for the man who formerly owned the site,J. Hood Wright (1836-1894), a banker, financier and philanthropist born in Philadelphia, who lived in a mansion on 175th Street and Haven Avenue. Wright anonymously gave money to convert the local subscription library into a free library which became a branch of theNew York Public Library.[1]
The city acquired the land byeminent domain in 1925, specifically to build a park, which the neighborhood was lacking in. It has been upgraded and renovated, and thecupola of the hexagonal recreation center was restored in 2013.[2] The park is supported by the Friends of J. Hood Wright Park, a neighborhood organization.[1]
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