Claremont Park

Claremont Park — the hilltop green heart of Morrisania

Few parks in the borough carry their history so plainly in the shape of the land. Claremont Park spreads across thirty-eight acres of rolling ground in Morrisania, and its highest terrace is exactly where a marble-trimmed country mansion once looked out over open farmland and a running brook. The house is gone, the brook is buried, and the orchards were cleared more than a century ago — but the ridge, the long views and the mature canopy remain, and they still set the mood. On a summer afternoon the park works like a small town square: barbecue smoke drifting over the lawns, handball echoing off the walls, birthday balloons tied to the gazebo rail, and a steady traffic of strollers on the paths that curl down the slope. It is one of the six great parks the city laid out for the Bronx in the 1880s, and of that group it is the most neighborhood-scaled — big enough to get lost in for an hour, small enough that regulars know each other by name.

Highlights

• Zborowski Point — the park’s celebrated crest, named for the family whose Claremont Mansion stood here from 1859; today it is the most requested spot in the park for children’s birthday parties.
• The gazebo — built in 1938 on the footprint left when the mansion was demolished, it gives shade, shelter and a ready-made stage for family gatherings.
• The ridge overlook — the ground drops away toward the valley of the vanished Mill Brook, also known as Saw Mill Creek, opening long westward views across the rooftops of the Bronx.
• Two outdoor pools — a full swimming pool plus a shallow wading pool for small children, operating through the city’s summer season.
• Ball fields and hard courts — baseball diamonds, basketball and handball courts that stay busy from early spring through late autumn.
• Rolling picnic lawns — grassy slopes with barbecue areas, the reason so many extended families treat Claremont as their summer living room.

What you’ll find

Claremont is a classic nineteenth-century estate park adapted for twentieth-century recreation: a broad triangular block of high ground, ringed by paths, with the active facilities pushed to the edges and the open lawns kept in the middle. That layout is why the park feels calm even when it is full.

• Two playgrounds with modern play equipment, safety surfacing and shaded seating for adults.
• A swimming pool and a separate wading pool, with changing facilities, open in the warm months.
• Basketball and handball courts, plus baseball fields used by school and league teams.
• Barbecue and picnic areas on the slopes, with tables and open lawn for blankets.
• A gazebo and paved gathering terrace at the high point of the park.
• Looping walking paths under mature shade trees, with benches at the turns and viewpoints.

Things to do — and who it’s for

• Families with young children — two playgrounds, a wading pool and gentle lawns mean a whole afternoon without leaving the park.
• Party planners — the gazebo and the terrace around Zborowski Point are the neighborhood’s default venue for birthdays and christenings.
• Ballplayers and court regulars — pickup basketball, handball and organized baseball run through the season.
• Walkers and runners — the perimeter paths give a shaded circuit with real elevation change, unusual for a flat-feeling borough.
• History-minded visitors — the park is a legible relic of the Morris and Zborowski estates and of the 1880s campaign that created the Bronx park system.
• Picnickers and barbecue crowds — the slopes are made for long weekend meals with a large group.

Getting there & practical

The park sits in Morrisania, in the west-central Bronx, and it is unusually well connected. The 4 train stops at Mount Eden Avenue and at 170th Street, both short walks from the park’s edges; the B and D lines serve 170th Street and 174–175 Streets a little to the north and west. Several local bus routes — among them the Bx11, Bx32 and the Bx41 and Bx41-SBS — run along the streets bordering the park, so a bus transfer usually gets you to a gate. There is no admission charge: entry to the park and use of the lawns, paths, courts and playgrounds are free. The outdoor pools operate on the city’s summer schedule with their own hours and their own rules on bags and swimwear, so they should be treated as a separate visit. Like nearly all city parks, Claremont keeps long daily hours from early morning until the small hours of the night, but the sensible window is daylight. Allow an hour for a walk and a look from the crest, half a day if you are bringing children, food and a ball.

When to visit

Spring is the connoisseur’s season: the slope greens up early, the mature trees leaf out from the bottom of the hill upward, and the ball fields fill with the first practices of the year. Summer is the park at full volume — pools open, barbecues going, music on the lawns, the gazebo booked most weekends; come early in the day if you want a shaded table. Autumn may be the best of all, when the canopy turns and the long view from the ridge sharpens as the leaves thin; the light in late afternoon is remarkable from the high ground. Winter strips the park back to its bones and reveals exactly why the Zborowskis built where they did: with the trees bare you can read the fall of the land toward the old brook valley, and after snow the slopes become the neighborhood’s sledding hill.

Good to know

The land was part of the Morris family estate from 1679, and it stayed in the family until Gouverneur Morris II, watching the railroad pull suburban development north, auctioned much of it off in 1848. A northern parcel went to the newly married Elliott Zborowski de Montsaulain and Anna Bathgate. In 1859 they built the Claremont Mansion, noted for its white marble decorative work, and landscaped the grounds in terraces that stepped down toward Mill Brook — the stream that once drained this valley and has long since been buried. The name they gave the estate is the name the neighborhood carries today. Under the New Parks Act of 1884 the city bought the Zborowski grounds as one of six major new Bronx parks, alongside Crotona, Van Cortlandt, Bronx, St. Mary’s and Pelham Bay; the land was folded into the borough park system in 1888, when paths and recreation grounds were cut in and the old orchards removed. The mansion itself survived for decades as the Bronx headquarters of the Parks Department before it was razed in 1938 and replaced by the gazebo; the department moved to a new building called Ranaqua. One vanished feature deserves a mention: the so-called Black Swamp, a deep pond on the property with a grim local reputation for swallowing livestock, which took roughly sixty thousand cubic yards of fill to close by 1904. The area also had its own railroad stop — Claremont Park station, renamed from Central Morrisania on June 1, 1891, and closed in 1960. Just east of the park, Little Claremont Playground, barely half an acre, is attached to the neighboring public school.

Visitor tips

• Climb to Zborowski Point first. Orienting yourself from the crest makes the rest of the park’s layout obvious, and it is the best photograph you will get here.
• If you want the gazebo or a shaded picnic table on a summer weekend, arrive in the morning — by midday the good spots are claimed for the whole day.
• Check the pool season and daily sessions before you build an afternoon around swimming; the pools run on the city’s summer calendar, not the park’s own hours.

Questions & answers

How big is Claremont Park? It covers about thirty-eight acres of high, rolling ground in Morrisania, which makes it one of the larger neighborhood parks in the west-central Bronx and one of the six original great Bronx parks of the 1880s.

Is there really a mansion in the park? Not any more. The Claremont Mansion, built in 1859 by Elliott and Anna Zborowski, stood at the top of the hill and later served as the Bronx headquarters of the Parks Department. It was demolished in 1938 and a gazebo was put up in its place; the site is still called Zborowski Point.

Can you swim there? Yes. The park has two outdoor pools — a full-size swimming pool and a small wading pool for young children — operating during the city’s summer pool season with their own hours and rules. Entry to the park itself is free.

What is there for children? Two playgrounds, the wading pool, wide safe lawns and the gazebo terrace that neighborhood families use for birthday parties. A second, much smaller playground called Little Claremont sits a block east, attached to the local public school.

How do I get there without a car? The 4 train serves Mount Eden Avenue and 170th Street; the B and D lines serve 170th Street and 174–175 Streets. Local buses including the Bx11, Bx32 and Bx41 run along the park’s edges. Most visitors walk in from a subway station in under fifteen minutes.

Why is the park on a hill? Because the estate was sited on a ridge above the valley of Mill Brook, also called Saw Mill Creek. The stream was buried as the district was built up, but the landform survived, which is why the western edge of the park still drops away and gives long views.

Is it worth visiting outside summer? Very much so. Autumn colour on the mature canopy and the clear winter views from the bare ridge are the park’s quieter pleasures, and the slopes are used for sledding after snow.

Are barbecues allowed? The park has designated barbecue and picnic areas on the slopes, and they are heavily used on summer weekends. Standard city park rules apply, so use the marked areas and take your rubbish with you.