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Pelham Bay Park, located in the northeast corner of the The Bronx, is the largest park in New York City, more than three times the size of Manhattan's Central Park. It includes land on both sides of the Hutchinson River and most of Hunter Island in Long Island Sound (now also part of the mainland). On its north is the village of Pelham Manor in Westchester County. The park borders the Bronx neighborhoods of Spencer Estates, Pelham Bay, and Co-op City. The southern part of Hunter Island is not part of the park but is occupied by an NYPD firing range. The City Island Bridge connects the park to City Island. The park is crossed by the New England Thruway, the Hutchinson River Parkway, and Amtrak's Northeast Corridor railroad.1 History
Anne Hutchinson's short-lived dissident colony, along with a number of other unsuccessful settlements, was located in what is now the park's land. The colony, though English, was under Dutch authority; it was destroyed in 1643 by a Siwanoy attack in reprisal for the unrelated massacres carried out under Willem KieftWillem Kieft was a Dutch merchant and Director of New Amsterdam (later renamed New York) from 1638 to 1647. He succeeded as Director of New Amsterdam in August 1647 by Peter Stuyvesant.'s direction of the Dutch West India CompanyThe Dutch West India Company ( Dutch: West-Indische Compagnie or WIC was a company of Dutch merchants. On June 3, 1621, it was granted a charter for a trade monopoly in the West by the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands. The area where the company c's New AmsterdamThis article is about the settlement in present-day New York City. For alternate usages, see New Amsterdam (disambiguation 20th century on Pearl Street in lower Manhattan recall the Dutch origins of the city. The original 17th century architecture of New colony. In 1654Events April 5 Signing of the Treaty of Westminster, ending the First Anglo-Dutch War. June 3 Louis XIV of France crowned at Rheims June 6 Charles X succedes his cousin Christina to the Swedish throne. After her abdication on June 5, Christina now the for an Englishman named Thomas Pell purchased 50,000 acres from the Siwanoy, land which would become known as Pelham Manor after Charles IICharles II ( 29 May 1630 6 February 1685) was the King of England, Scotland and Ireland from 30 January 1649 de jure or 29 May 1660 de facto until his death. Charles II's father, Charles I, had been executed in 1649 following the English Civil War; the mo's 1666Events September 2 Great Fire of London: A large fire breaks out in London in the house of Charles II's baker on Pudding Lane near London Bridge. The fire burns for three days destroying 10,000 buildings including St. Paul's Cathedral, but only 16 people charter.
During the American RevolutionThe American Revolution refers to the series of events, ideas, and changes that resulted in the political separation of thirteen colonies in North America from the British Empire and the creation of the United States of America. The American Revolutionary, the land was a buffer between British-held New York City and rebel-held Westchester. As such it was the site of the Battle of Pell Point, where MassachusettsMassachusetts is a state of the United States of America, part of the New England region. postal abbreviation is MA and its traditional abbreviation is Mass . It is properly called the Commonwealth of Massachusetts although there is no legal distinction b militia hiding behind stone walls (still visible at one of the park's golf courses) stopped a British advance.
The park was created in 1888, under the auspices of the Bronx Parks Department, and passed to New York City when the part of the Bronx east of the Bronx River was annexed to the city in 1895. Orchard Beach, one of the city's most popular, was created through the efforts of Robert Moses in the 1930s.
