Sakura Park

Located between Riverside Church and International House, Sakura Park takes its name from more than 2000 cherry trees delivered to New York City parks from Japan in 1912; sakura means “cherry blossom” in Japanese. The trees had originally been intended as a gift from the Committee of Japanese Residents of New York for the 1909 Hudson-Fulton Celebration, an 18-day statewide observance marking the 100th anniversary of Robert Fulton’s demonstration of the steam-powered boat on the Hudson River and the 300th anniversary of Henry Hudson’s discovery and exploration of that river, but the steamer carrying the first shipment was lost at sea. A new shipment arrived in 1912, and the trees were planted in Riverside and Sakura Parks. The land, purchased by the City of New York from John D. Rockefeller in 1896 as an easterly extension of Riverside Park, was also known as Claremont Park and lay directly east of Grant’s Tomb, with rolling terrain, curving paths, and benches facing the Hudson. In 1932, with a donation from Rockefeller, the city hired Olmsted Brothers to redesign the park; over two years the site was graded, formal paths were laid to create rectangular plots of grass and shrubs enclosed by hedges and fencing, and a massive buttressed retaining wall modeled on the wall surrounding Keniworth Abbey in England was built along Claremont Avenue. The park reopened on May 25, 1934. In 1918, a monument to General Daniel Butterfield, sculpted by Gutzon Borglum, was erected in the southeast corner, depicting the Civil War officer, later a major-general and chief of staff of the Army of the Potomac, standing on a rock with crossed arms and cocked hat; Butterfield is best known for composing Taps. A stone Japanese tori, or lantern, made from native Japanese rock, was donated by the City of Tokyo and dedicated on October 10, 1960, with Crown Prince Akihito and Princess Michiko present, celebrating the Tokyo–New York sister-city affiliation inaugurated on February 29th, 1960; in 1987 they personally rededicated the ten-foot lantern at a ceremony hosted by Mayor Edward I. Koch and Parks Commissioner Stern. Beginning in 1981, Quennell Rothschild Associates renovated the park, adding a play area for toddlers, plantings of linden trees, barberry shrubs, and several varieties of Japanese cherry trees, and a pavilion used by Manhattan School of Music as a performance space; at the 1986 ribbon-cutting, Japanese Consul Hideo Nomoto called sakura a symbol of renewal and bright promise and praised the park as an island of calm in Manhattan.

New York, New York · United States