CHERP (Community Hooked on East River Park) is a group of volunteer advocates engaged in fostering awareness and participation in our neighborhood back yard, East River Park.
Our goal, in cooperation with the Parks Department, is to promote a safe, clean, beautiful green waterfront park for everyone to enjoy.
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OUR PARK’S HISTORY:
EAST RIVER

East River Park, born in 1939, is the largest downtown park on the island of Manhattan, weighing in at 57 acres. It came into being with the planning and construction of FDR Drive along the east side of Manhattan. The vision of Robert Moses, transportation coordinator and parks commissioner for New York City at the time, included the park between the expressway and the East River, with a treeshaded esplanade, recreational facilities and sweeping views of the East River. To maximize the area dedicated to open space, Moses built a 10-foot wide concrete extension to Manhattanʼs eastern shoreline, spanning 20 blocks. Much of what we know of today as solid land was created from fill, wooden piling and platforms leveraged out over the water. The Park itself it bounded by East River and the FDR Drive, from Montgomery Street to East 13th Street. The park has eight ball fields, a children's playground, a track with a football/soccer field and 12 tennis courts. It is the only park south of 59th Street that has a significant number of ball fields and tennis courts. At the same time East RIver Park also features a dance oval, offering a space for al fresco ball room dancing when the park opened in 1939.

Additional structures, an amphitheater and a Fire Boat House were added to the park in 1941. The amphitheater, along with an adjacent limestone recreational building, were part of an urban renewal project for the Lower East Side. Joseph Papp (1921-1991), founder of the Public Theater, staged Julius Caesar there in 1956, creating the seed for Shakespeare in the Park. During much of the 50ties, the amphitheater was the site of free Evening-in-the-Park concerts and local schools held their graduation ceremonies there. In 1973, however, the amphitheater closed due to a budget shortage and because of subsequent vandalism the neglected theater fell into disrepair. In the fall of 2001, the amphitheater received a make over, and the limestone recreational building was demolished, to leave a stage area and the seating of the original design intact. By the summer of 2002, free concert were offered once again at the amphitheater, and in the summer of 2007 the City Parks Foundation offered a series of events, ranging from a Willie Colon to KRSONE concerts and dance performances by the Brazilian Girls.

The Fire Boat House, build in 1941, to house the NYC Fire Department’s Marine Company 6, follows a long tradition of fireboats stationed at the Grand Street location of the East River. According to the Fire Department, fireboats were moored here as early as 1877. The building was acquired by the Parks Department in 1994, following the downsizing of NYC Marine Companies due to budget cuts and the de-industrialization of the City’s waterfront. The last fire boat moored at East River Park was the Alfred E. Smith, which is now moored across the river in the Brooklyn Navy Yard. The building is one of the last remaining fireboat houses in the City and is not only a valuable reminder of the heroic efforts of the FDNY Marine companies but also of the City’s maritime history. The Fire Boat House is jointly used by Parks and the Lower East Side Ecology Center and offers an Environmental Education Center on the ground floor. Currently, it is part of the reconstruction of the bulkhead and public restrooms are being installed in the building.

In 2001 East River Park was rededicated and named in honor of New York City's 103rd Mayor, John V. Lindsay, who served as Mayor from 1966 to 1974. In the spring of 2001, an underwater inspection along the waterfront found that the bulkheads and relieving platforms supporting East River Park were no longer structurally sound, and as a result, sections were closed to the public. A $69.1 million project, funded by the Mayor's Office, to reconstruct the underwater structures and rebuild the promenade has been underway since 2005. Approximately 6,600 feet of the promenade and seawall bulkheads from Jackson to East 13th Streets will be reconstructed in whole or in part in order to protect park facilities and reopen the promenade to the public.

CORLEARS HOOK
This historical name refers to the section of Manhattanʼs East River waterfront that has the shape of a hook (even before Mosesʼs earthworks) and the Corlear family, the 17th century Dutch landowners who controlled much of the property in this curving landmass. Although the area has drastically transformed over time, this section of the Lower East Side maintains a certain separate character and a rich waterfront-oriented history.

Originally a heavy marshland on a graded coastal incline, Corlears Hook was used by Lenape Native Americans to land their canoes, Later, Dutch settlers of the mid-1600s took advantage of this area for the loading and unloading of transport vessels. During the American Revolutionary War Battle of Brooklyn, the British landing and advance upon General George Washingtonʼs fleeing Colonial Army was impeded by a series of barricades erected on the site. In 1814, the area underwent renovations as part of a relief project in response to Irish immigration. By leveling the hilly land out toward the waterfront, easier access was made to docks that encouraged industrial and residential growth in the area.

In the 1880s, with the rising tide of immigration, rapid local industrialization, and overburdened tenements, the need for a nearby park space increased. Before Mosesʼs plans for East River Park, Corlears Hook Park (a 4.4 acre portion of which remains inland from FDR Drive between Jackson and Cherry Streets) was the focus of the Cityʼs park provisioning in the neighborhood. However, during President Franklin D. Rooseveltʼs Works Progress Administration, the City began developing the East Riverʼs shoreline and Corlears Hook Park was reduced in size. Though Corlears Hook Park initially lost a large portion of land to the expressway, the addition of the neighboring East River Park in the 1940s granted the area a new expanse of parkland.