Park Power

Culture, Play, and Politics in Harlem’s Marcus Garvey Park

Location of Marcus Garvey Park

Introduction

Marcus Garvey Park, formerly Mount Morris Park, is a twenty-acre green oasis nestled within the densely developed blocks of Harlem in New York City. Serving as a physical and cultural nexus, the park lies just a block away from the kinetic energy of Harlem's most significant commercial corridor, 125th Street. The park also interrupts Fifth Avenue, Harlem's central axis, and the historical boundary between predominantly African American Central Harlem and Spanish East Harlem. Its most defining feature is the 70-foot tall mount of Manhattan schist, comprising a third of the park's area. Atop it rises a fire watchtower, built in 1856, the only surviving one in the city.

Marcus Garvey Park, Google Earth Studio, 2025

The park is a shared refuge used by diasporic groups who have made Harlem their home over the past century, including African Americans, many of whom were part of the early 20th-century Great Migration, Caribbean immigrants, and Puerto Ricans, whose presence grew after the passage of the Jones Act of 1917, which conferred their citizenship. For the working-class communities who didn’t have the means to travel beyond the neighborhood for recreation, this park offered vital respite from an unforgiving city. 

From parades and stage performances to political rallies, the park has hosted an array of occasions that reflect the community's dynamic spirit. Among the most iconic events was the Harlem Cultural Festival, a landmark musical celebration held over six weekends in the summer of 1969. This festival showcased transformative performances spanning gospel, soul, blues, jazz, funk, Latin, and Afrocentric genres while serving as a platform where public figures engaged directly with the pressing racial and economic challenges reshaping the nation. It was eclipsed by the larger and more publicized Woodstock Festival that occurred over an August weekend the same summer. Nevertheless, the park’s hosting of the Harlem Cultural Festival is a testament to its significance.

Harlem Cultural Festival, 1969

The diverse artistic, cultural, and public health purposes that the park has supported over the years solidify its status as Harlem’s most prominent open space, embodying the vibrancy and resiliency of one of the most famous neighborhoods in the world.

National Register of Historic Places

For this reason and others, Marcus Garvey Park has been nominated to the National Register of Historic Places (as of January 2024), the official list of the nation's historic places worthy of preservation, authorized by the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966. Places listed to the National Register may be eligible for preservation grant programs.

Documentation for listing includes the National Register registration form, which details a place’s history and significance and includes supporting materials, such as photos and historical images. Additionally, as part of the National Park Service’s  Underrepresented Communities Grant Program, this project received special funding to undertake oral history interviews with long-time Harlem residents and professionals for whom the park figured prominently in their lives in the 1960s and 1970s.

Overview

This Story Map seeks to illuminate the rich and multifaceted history of Marcus Garvey Park as documented in the nomination. It highlights the contributions of numerous individuals and groups who, over decades, have shaped the park into the vital social and cultural hub that it is today.

The park’s very existence is due to early nineteenth-century residents’ efforts to protect its most physically imposing feature, the 70-foot-tall mount of Manhattan schist. In 1835, not wanting to see it blasted into oblivion for street cutting, area residents successfully lobbied elected officials to establish a park there called Mount Morris, making it one of Manhattan’s oldest public parks—predating Central Park by two decades. 

The park landscape today largely reflects the reconstruction carried out in the 1930s under the direction of Parks Commissioner Robert Moses. Using a labor workforce comprising hundreds employed by the federal Works Progress Administration, the city Parks Department introduced new forms of recreation into the park for the first time and imposed a new design order on its pre-existing Picturesque landscape. The work, however, laid bare the changing demographics of the neighborhood at the time and the racism of white professionals and residents.

A particularly transformative period came in the 1960s when community leaders—mostly concerned mothers—played a pivotal role in advocating for the park's rehabilitation after years of neglect. Collaborating with local elected officials, design professionals, and a prominent Broadway composer, these dedicated women spearheaded efforts to reclaim the park as a safe and welcoming environment and, in the process, fostered a sense of ownership and pride within the neighborhood. This legacy of advocacy is also exemplified by the name change of the park in 1973 from Mount Morris to Marcus Garvey Park to honor the Black nationalist leader.


Current Features

Marcus Garvey Park retains a high level of integrity as an important public space for active and passive recreation that has been used for gatherings within a densely populated neighborhood for a long period of time. It retains its original form, size, and setting to when it was established in 1836 and named initially Mount Morris Square, organized around the dramatic outcrop of Manhattan schist. Today, the park also retains several 19th and early 20th-century features, such as its 1856 Fire Watchtower, ca. 1896 perimeter fence, and most elements of the 1930s park plan, including the T-shaped stone terrace, called the Acropolis, atop the mount.

The construction of a Modern amphitheater-recreational center complex and a large Brutalist pool facility in the late 1960s altered the park’s 1930s symmetry on the west side. These recreational and performing arts facilities, which hug the base of the mount, are focal points when approaching the park from the north and west. Their development was brought about by the advocacy of local residents who organized the Mount Morris Park Rehabilitation Committee.


Before the Park

Indigenous Land Management

Before European colonization, the 20 acres comprising Marcus Garvey Park and the surrounding urban blocks were an ecologically diverse wilderness. Its seventy-foot craggy outcrop was the tallest in an isolated cluster of exposed rock mounds surrounded by a flat alluvial plain. This culturally derived landscape was managed by generations of Munsee-speaking Lenni Lenape as grasslands for hunting through the use of prescribed burns.

European Expansion and its Impacts

European settlers, mostly of Dutch origin, established farms on the Harlem plain in the 17th century. Over the next century and a half, they developed roads, and a small village took shape a short distance east of today’s park.


Park Evolution (1867-1938)

Marcus Garvey Park’s very existence is the result of successful lobbying by local residents who, in 1835, did not want to see the rocky eminence, a popular picnic spot, obliterated for an avenue. Its official establishment as Mount Morris Square the following year makes it among Manhattan’s oldest parks and Harlem’s oldest.

Today, the park's boundaries remain unchanged, but the landscape plan has been changed twice—in the late 1860s and again in the 1930s. The park’s layout today reflects the 1930s reconstruction with the distinctive mount remaining the central organizing feature. Improvements made in the 1960s-1970s are concentrated on the park’s west side in the form of the Recreation Center, Amphitheater, and Pool.


Park as Source of Racial Tension (1930s)

The park was a contested space in the 1930s. At the time, the park was being wholly reconstructed to provide new forms of urban recreation and reflect changing design trends.

NYC Parks' Archived Collection

Early 1934 / Late 1937

NYC Parks’ Archived Collection

In addition to imposing symmetry on the park's 19th-century Picturesque landscape, Moses's lead designers, Embury and Clarke, prepared plans in early 1935 for a tunnel through the mount so traffic could flow unimpeded on Fifth Avenue. It was an idea first raised in 1922 by the Harlem Board of Trade. However, the plan was dropped as funding began drying up.

The neighborhood’s dwindling number of well-off, white residents who lived on the west side of the park did not welcome the changes, arguing that they would invite Black and brown children from the northwest and East Harlem. Most complaints were registered by an organization of white residents called the Mount Morris Park Association, who claimed to be relics of “old New York.” (This organization has no ties to later groups associated with the park.)

In a private letter to a friend about the park’s condition, Moses cited a “tremendous racial problem” as a challenge to planning. To appease the white residents and increase recreation, Embury and Clarke sited the swing sets and basketball courts in the southeast corner of the park and prohibited group sports from the west side. 

At a ceremony in 1938, Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia dedicated the park to neighborliness and love of all people surrounding the park amid mixed racial groups. Meanwhile, a reporter for the Amsterdam News, a weekly newspaper with a largely Black readership, instead found the Civil Service Commissioner’s remarks to be of greater significance: “Ferdinand Q. Morton made it clear that Harlem would receive the same consideration as other sections of New York City,” adding that “he received an applause equal to that of the mayor.”

“Peace Symbol Seen In Mt. Morris Park,” (1938 October 16), New York Times, 46; aerial photos of southeast play oval, March 1937, and the terrace on the mount, 1939, NYC Parks’ Archived Collection.


Community-Driven Park Planning (1960s)

“[The park is] used by some 75,000 families, 3,000 of these persons live on one block alone near the park, who are decent, law-abiding, church-going citizens, who ask no more than the bare necessities of life. We seek no luxuries, our park rehabilitated is a necessity if we are to continue to grow as decent citizens in this great metropolis. …Mount Morris Park is a necessity for our community because we cannot afford to travel away from its confines to seek recreational outlets.” Hilda Stokely address to the Board of Estimate, ca. 1964.

By 1960, the exodus of white middle-class residents to suburban communities following the Second World War and the continuing influx of African Americans and Puerto Ricans to the city had transformed Central and East Harlem into solidly majority-minority districts. According to the U.S. Census of 1950, the residents in the immediate vicinity of Mount Morris Park were almost entirely Black, most of whom migrated from Southern states and who worked service and factory jobs. Property abandonment, disinvestment, dwindling economic opportunities, and crime took a severe toll on the quality of life in Harlem. 

In the absence of government action, a coalition of 30 school groups, block associations, churches, elected officials, and other individuals formed in 1961 to make Mount Morris Park a safe place for children and families and to agitate for maintenance, security, and new recreational facilities. The group, called the Mount Morris Park Rehabilitation Committee, was led by Hilda Stokely (1922-2011). Stokely—who moved to Harlem in 1942 from North Carolina and was raising her two children in the neighborhood—was an adept organizer. In 1962 she was the first elected female district leader of East Harlem’s 68th Assembly District. 

1963 Community Flier. Source: Stokely Papers.

These photos were taken by members of the Rehabilitation Committee to draw attention to the poor conditions in the park. Source: Stokely Papers.

In an oral history, her daughter Madlyn Stokely explained how she built political capital by organizing Harlem mothers as a constituency that couldn’t be ignored. She also recruited planning professionals to aid their cause by helping them articulate their vision. These included architect Arthur Rosenblatt and park advocate Elinor Guggenheimer, the first female member of the City Planning Commission. In 1963, major newspapers began reporting on the committee’s efforts, which forced a response from the Parks Department.

Source: Stokely Papers.

Park Modernism

The committee’s first big success came in 1965 when the Park’s Department agreed to construct a combined recreation center and amphitheater complex in the park, aided by a generous donation from the Broadway composer Richard Rodgers, who grew up near the park. Rodgers selected the New York firm Lundquist & Stonehill to design the facility.

The committee did not give up its calls for a substantial pool, so it was well-positioned when the ambitious pool-building administration of Mayor John V. Lindsay (1921-2000) began in 1966. It was a recognition of the importance of park infrastructure and programming for diffusing tension in the hot summer months. The pool is the first Parks Department project in the city’s history to be designed by a Black architecture firm—Ifill Johnson Hanchard. In an oral history, architect George Hanchard explained that Harlem needed an Olympic-sized pool so its children have equal opportunity. Their Brutalist brick-and-concrete facility opened in July 1971.


Black Arts Movement and the Harlem Cultural Festivals (1960s)

As the recreation center and amphitheater complex were being constructed, the park hosted its most culturally consequential events of the period, amplifying messages of Black Power and pride.


Park Renaming (1960s-1970s)

The Nation of Islam, the African freedom movements of the late 1960s, and the re-emergence of Black Nationalism strongly influenced early 1970s Harlem culture and politics. For community-based organizations like the Harlem Council for Economic Development, which was led by the civil rights activist James Lawson, the fight for self-determination also included renaming public institutions and places after famous individuals of African descent to reflect Black heritage and pride. 

Beginning in the 1960s, Harlem community organizer Ora Mobley initiated the Harlem Council’s renaming campaign. In 1967, they successfully petitioned to rename John Hancock School on West 127th Street in honor of Harriet Tubman. In addition to renaming, the council picketed to increase the number of Black educators and administrators in public schools. In 1971, the Central Harlem Mother’s Association, also spearheaded by Mobley, petitioned the commissioner of hospitals to rename Harlem Hospital for Dr. Louis T. Wright, who led pioneering cancer research and was the first Black physician to join the staff of this city hospital. While unsuccessful in that effort, the renaming campaign expanded to streets, parks, and institutions, embedding a Black legacy in the public landscape. 

The renaming campaign, led by Community Thing, came to Mount Morris Park in 1973. In 1970, its volunteers found a previously unknown collection of 10,000 papers attributed to the late Marcus Garvey (1887-1940) in an abandoned tenement they were renovating near the park. The discovery set off a public debate about ownership of the papers and accessibility to them. Community Thing director Beraneece Sims argued that the recently completed Recreation Center in Mount Morris Park should serve as a museum for the study of Marcus Garvey. At the time, she was the chair of the organizing committee for the new complex. However, city administrators did not support changing the multi-use programming of the building.

The renaming of the park in honor of Marcus Garvey may have been a compromise with the city. It was nonetheless championed by the Harlem Council, Community Thing, and City Councilman Fred Samuel, who would later be part of the effort to rename Jackie Robinson Park (formerly Colonial Park). The City Council unanimously approved the name change on July 19, 1973. The following month, dozens attended the renaming ceremony, including Mobley, Samuel, Lawson, and park department officials. The park’s renaming reflected its value within the community, which has not diminished in subsequent years.


Park Today and Neighborhood Change (1980s-Present)

Storefront for Art and Architecture, "Marching On Performance- Day One," November 11, 2017.

After the fiscal crisis of the 1970s, Harlem entered a period of revitalization known as the Second Harlem Renaissance. This era, characterized by rising real estate values, gentrification, and grassroots efforts, was shaped by community organizations advocating for housing rehabilitation and cultural pride. Annual celebrations in Marcus Garvey Park, such as the 1980s Garvey Day parade, showcased this pride. Events like the 1987 "Raising the Black Star" festival, chaired by Susan Taylor of ESSENCE magazine and Marta Vega of the Caribbean Cultural Center, featured Caribbean, African American, and Brazilian music and dance performances, promoting unity and pan-African pride.

The Mount Morris Park Community Improvement Association (MMPCIA), founded in 1981, was instrumental in neighborhood advocacy. Initially addressing the crack epidemic, the group shifted focus to revitalizing the area. MMPCIA successfully opposed controversial state proposals for “the Ruins” on Mount Morris Park West, resulting in their redevelopment into condominiums in 1998. Despite these efforts, the deteriorating state of Marcus Garvey Park hindered broader renewal. A 1983 study documented its decline, with abandoned buildings, graffiti-covered walls, and a deteriorating fire watchtower. MMPCIA's advocacy spurred improvements, including demolishing abandoned structures, creating a new softball diamond, and restoring views through selective tree removal. In the 1990s, the organization organized cultural programs like “Sunday Afternoons in Harlem,” featuring modern dance performances to draw visitors to the park.

Drummers' Circle

By the late 1990s, the vision of a working-class-led transformation faded as wealthier newcomers brought cultural and demographic shifts to Harlem. Marcus Garvey Park became a focal point of these tensions, particularly with the drummers’ circle tradition, which began in 1969. For longtime residents, the weekly drumming symbolized community and cultural memory. As gallery owner Saundra Heath explained, the event was “a beautiful kind of cultural memory of being in Harlem.” The drumming, she noted, “marked each weekend,” becoming integral to the neighborhood’s rhythm, akin to the historic ringing of the fire bell. However, noise complaints from new residents in nearby high-rise buildings led to repeated relocations of the drummers within the park. The controversy provoked anger among longtime residents, who questioned the newcomers’ authority to dictate public space use. “There’s a lot of anger around it because it’s like, how? You know? Who and how dare you? And how do you get to determine what happens in the park?” Heath recalled. A compromise eventually designated a formal drumming space with benches at the mount’s northeast base.

Organizations like the Marcus Garvey Park Alliance (MGPA), founded in 1999, and Save Harlem Now! continue these revitalization efforts. MGPA raised over $6 million to upgrade the amphitheater and restore the fire watchtower, while Save Harlem Now! advocates for preserving Harlem’s architectural and cultural landmarks, including the Ifill Johnson Hanchard pool and bathhouse. These groups exemplify the ongoing struggle to balance preservation, renewal, and community identity in Harlem.

Fire Watchtower Restoration, 2019


Conclusion: A Living Legacy

Marcus Garvey Park stands as a testament to Harlem's resilience, cultural vibrancy, and enduring spirit. From its origins as a gathering place for 19th-century picnickers to its role as a civic square during pivotal moments in African American history, the park has been both a reflection of and a catalyst for change in the neighborhood. Its story encompasses the struggles and triumphs of a community that has continually redefined itself amidst challenges like economic decline, systemic racism, and gentrification.

Throughout its history, Marcus Garvey Park has remained a space for celebration, activism, and creativity. It has been the site of inspiring cultural events, grassroots movements, and community advocacy that have left a lasting imprint on Harlem and beyond. Whether through the joyful rhythms of the drummers’ circle, the architectural restoration of its landmarks, or the voices of activists shaping its future, the park continues to serve as a vital hub for connection and expression.

As we reflect on the park’s past, we recognize its importance not only as a historic space but as a living legacy—a symbol of Harlem's identity and the ongoing efforts to preserve its cultural and social fabric. The future of Marcus Garvey Park, like its history, will be written by those who cherish and advocate for it, ensuring it remains a beacon of community, heritage, and hope for generations to come.

This story map was created by Jenna Dublin-Boc and Marissa Marvelli using the ArcGIS Story Maps. The information presented herein draws upon their 2024 National Register of Historic Places nomination for Marcus Garvey Park, which will be available to the public in spring 2025. This work was funded with an  Underrepresented Communities Grant  from the National Park Service. The authors would like to acknowledge the following agencies, organizations, and individuals for their important contributions to this effort: the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation & Historic Preservation; New York City Department of Parks & Recreation; Madlyn Stokely; Mount Morris Park Community Improvement Association; Valerie Bradley; Marcus Garvey Park Alliance; Manhattan Community Board Eleven; Manhattan Community Board Ten; George Hanchard and the Hanchard Family; Glenn Hunter; Saundra and Thomas Heath; Scotty Bryant; New York City Department of Records; and the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture.

Early 1934 / Late 1937

NYC Parks’ Archived Collection

1963 Community Flier. Source: Stokely Papers.

These photos were taken by members of the Rehabilitation Committee to draw attention to the poor conditions in the park. Source: Stokely Papers.

Storefront for Art and Architecture, "Marching On Performance- Day One," November 11, 2017.

Drummers' Circle

Fire Watchtower Restoration, 2019