October 29, 2012 | by Bogdan Mohora, BogdanMohora Blog
It was known simply as “the park” to the neighborhood kids of 1950s Hell’s Kitchen in Manhattan. Matthews-Palmer Playground, as it’s called today, was little more than a narrow length of basketball and handball courts, concrete chess tables and benches that stretched from West 46th Street to West 45th Street in between Ninth and Tenth avenues. At night, the stark playground, wedged between five story tenements, laid in thick shadows lit only by the streetlights of West 46th Street. It was a refuge for residents from the indoor heat of smoldering summer days and nights. Click here to read more.
