Theodore Roosevelt Park

Theodore Roosevelt Park on Manhattan's Upper West Side, home to the American Museum of Natural History, honors Theodore Roosevelt, the New York City native who served as police commissioner, governor, vice-president, and, after William McKinley's assassination, the youngest president of the United States. Remembered for "speak softly and carry a big stick," Roosevelt was also a scholar of natural history and a devoted conservationist who helped create the National Zoo, establish 51 national bird sanctuaries, and preserve 18 natural wonders including the Grand Canyon. A Harvard graduate and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, he wrote three dozen books, and the museum holds specimens he collected in Egypt in 1872. The land was mapped as a public park in 1807, acquired by the city in 1839, and managed as an annex of Central Park before the museum, founded in 1869, moved there; construction began in 1874 under Calvert Vaux and Jacob Wrey Mould, and the museum opened in 1877. Later proposals for other uses, including a 1916 tabernacle, were rejected. The state secured land for a Theodore Roosevelt Memorial in 1929, dedicated its indoor portions in 1936, and added a bronze statue by James Earle Fraser in 1940 on a pedestal designed by John Russell Pope. Known as Manhattan Square until 1958, the park has also been called Museum Park and Dinosaur Park. It includes the Bull Moose Dog Run, installed in 1990 and relocated during a 2000 renovation, and in 2003 it gained the Nobel Monument, chosen for Roosevelt's distinction as the first United States president to win a Nobel Prize. Today the park honors Roosevelt and serves residents and museum visitors as a place of rest and recreation.

New York, New York · United States