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I wanted to share with the forum that Raoul Wallenberg Forest in Spuyten Duyvil now has historic signage.
The Arts & Antiquities Division of NYC Parks is in charge of researching and writing the signage (and also the digital content on the website) but if you provide them with research that they don’t have, they will sometimes amend and update the existing materials.
Here is the text, which can be found here: https://www.nycgovparks.org/parks/raoul-wallenberg-forest/history
This text is part of Parks’ Historical Signs Project and can be found posted within the park.
What was here before?
This was the site of a rambling brick mansion erected in 1890 on a grassy hillside estate overlooking the Hudson River. It was built by world-renowned copper mining engineer and businessman, James Douglas (1837–1918). His daughter Elizabeth lived there until 1944.In 1961 the United Nations rented the mansion for Burmese Diplomat and third Secretary-General U Thant (1909–1974) and his extended family. Thant was instrumental in defusing the Cuban Missile Crisis and in ending the civil war in the Congo. At his Spuyten Duyvil home, he conducted important UN business and entertained many domestic and foreign dignitaries. He lived in this home with his family until 1971. The mansion burned down and was demolished in 1974.
In 1987 the property was sold to a real estate developer who planned to build 28 single-family homes. To preserve the natural landscape as a community amenity, the citizens of Riverdale petitioned the City to preserve it as a public park.
How did this site become parkland?
This site was purchased by the City from a real estate developer on August 14, 1990. On November 28 of that year, Mayor David N. Dinkins (1927-2020) signed a bill naming the property after Raoul Wallenberg.In 1996 the park was renamed Raoul Wallenberg Forest. It contains many venerable old-growth trees with trunks of large girth, including two—a white oak and a European beech—given the NYC Parks honorific “Great Trees”. The site is also home to several densely vegetated areas of blackberries, wineberries, grapes, roses, Black locust and Sumac trees, and various wildflowers. It is designated a Forever Wild Forest Preserve.
Who is this parkland named for?
This parkland is named in honor of Raoul Gustav Wallenberg (1912–1947), a Swedish diplomat who is credited with saved tens of thousands of Hungarian Jews from likely extermination by the Nazis during World War II.In 1944, the War Refugee Board appointed Raoul Wallenberg first secretary at the Swedish legation in Budapest. He designed counterfeit Swedish passports and distributed them on trains to Jews bound for concentration camps. He purchased as many houses, villas, and buildings as possible and adorned them with the blue and yellow colors of Sweden’s flag, thereby making them neutral diplomatic property and safe havens for Jews. Wallenberg also organized and set up warehouses stocked with food to distribute rations to the needy, and to bribe Nazi officers. The Germans murdered hundreds of thousands Hungarian Jews during the war, but Wallenberg almost single-handedly saved as many as 100,000 Jews from likely death through his cunning and bravery.
On January 17, 1945, Wallenberg left Budapest to meet with Soviet military officials in eastern Hungary. This was the last time Wallenberg was ever seen in public. The Russian government claimed to have no knowledge of his whereabouts until 1957, when documents were released stating that Wallenberg had died of a heart attack in a Russian prison in 1947. To this day, Wallenberg’s precise fate remains unknown.
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TEXT:
A battle has broken out in the Bronx over the future of the peaceful acreage where U Thant lived when he headed the United Nations.
A group of neighbors from Riverdale and Spuyten Duyvil has demanded that the city acquire as a public park the 4.75-acre parcel known as the Douglas-U Thant estate, north of 232d Street, between Palisade and Douglas Avenues.
But a local developer, Robert R. Schwartz, has bought the property and plans to build 28 single-family homes. He said the city’s environmental rules, combined with his own ”environmentalist” penchant, would yield a sensitive and responsible development.
Caught in the middle is the Koch administration, which may – or may not – have promised to acquire the land but now seems reluctant to pursue the idea. Potential for a ‘Greenbelt’.
Meanwhile, the estate sits in quiet abandonment under bitternut hickory trees and copper beeches and black oaks. U Thant departed after retiring as Secretary General in 1971. The mansion was demolished in 1974. Now there is dense forest broken by brilliant clearings. Sunlight cascades in milky sheets over the tree crowns and down the woodland walls. Black squirrels are underfoot, blue jays overhead.
”The land speaks for itself,” said one of the advocates of a park, Ron Raz. Irma L. Fleck of the Riverdale Nature Preservancy said the intention was to keep the estate as a natural preserve, not as a spot for picnic benches and playgrounds.
Advocates, including Borough President Fernando Ferrer, also emphasize that there is an opportunity to be seized that will not present itself again: creating a ”greenbelt” by linking Riverdale Park to Seton Park through the estate, which sits between them.
Speaking of the developer, Mr. Ferrer said: ”I don’t blame him. He’s got a prime piece of land. Putting mansions on it makes sense from his economic point of view. I identify a different public purpose.”
The creation of U Thant Park ”is something this community wants very, very much,” Mr. Ferrer continued. ”It preserves a living laboratory for students especially. That’s what excites me about it. I wish it would excite the city the same way.”
Mr. Schwartz, who said he paid $1.65 million for the property, sees an opportunity, too, and for more than economic gain. Developer Indicates Flexibility
”With the proper planning,” he said, ”that piece of property can be visually a delight. It will add real-estate taxes. It will add many jobs while construction goes on and sales taxes when the materials go in. It will add a sense of vitality to the area at night.
”There is no intention to put something there that would not fit into the environment,” Mr. Schwartz added. ”I would, under the proper circumstances, consider the possibility of doing a cluster development in order to leave more of the space green than would be under existing zoning.”
But opponents want the city to use its condemnation powers. Two months ago, they believed they had a commitment from the Koch administration to acquire the land, if the Borough President would pay half the cost from his discretionary capital budget. City Undecided on Purchase
On Sept. 17, however, The Riverdale Press, a community newspaper, announced in a page one story that the city had backed away from acquisition.
As Deputy Mayor Robert Esnard recalled it: ”Frankly, there may have been a misunderstanding. The thing that was clear was that Freddy Ferrer wanted us to acquire the property, and we thought it was a good idea. We said we’d possibly do it.”
Indeed, Mr. Esnard said, ”it is still conceivable that we’ll buy it.”
But that does not seem likely. Nothing has happened yet.
”Not one city official has ever contacted me with regard to this property,” Mr. Schwartz said.
Three things stood in the way of acquisition with city money, Mr. Esnard said.
”We had an alternate possibility to get it acquired through state bond money,” he said. ”We did not know the price – and still don’t. In fact, people are talking about $5 million. And it is protected by a natural-area designation in the zoning ordinance, so there won’t be any immediate threat.”
Because the property lies in a special district, building plans must be reviewed by the City Planning Commission. The natural-area designation is meant to protect botanical, geological and topographical features of the Riverdale terrain and also to control erosion.
A version of this article appears in print on Nov. 16, 1987, Section B, Page 3 of the National edition with the headline: Bronx Residents Fighting Plans Of a Developer.
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