John Jay Park is a park in the

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

borough of

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

. It is located between East 76th and 78th Streets, and between the FDR Drive and a short street called Cherokee Place, on Manhattan's

Upper East Side The Upper East Side, sometimes abbreviated UES, is a neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan in New York City, bounded by 96th Street to the north, the East River to the east, 59th Street to the south, and Central Park/Fifth Avenue to the wes ...

. The park is named for statesman and New York Governor

John Jay John Jay (December 12, 1745 – May 17, 1829) was an American statesman, patriot, diplomat, abolitionist, signatory of the Treaty of Paris, and a Founding Father of the United States. He served as the second governor of New York and the f ...

. In 1902 the city acquired through condemnation a parcel of land at the site of the park and opened a public bath house in 1906. A swimming pool and promenade was built nearby from 1940 to 1942, part of a

Work Projects Administration The Works Progress Administration (WPA; renamed in 1939 as the Work Projects Administration) was an American New Deal agency that employed millions of jobseekers (mostly men who were not formally educated) to carry out public works projects, in ...

construction program. In 1941 the bath house was renovated to include an auditorium, recreation room, gym, and changing facility which could accommodate 1,002 male and 590 female bathers. In 2010, a substantial upgrade was completed on the bath house, allowing visitors who are disabled to have full access to the facilities. A large playground occupies almost half of the park's total acreage. The remaining half has basketball courts, handball courts, and the pool and bath house. The park is used for physical education classes by Eleanor Roosevelt High School,

Lycée Français de New York The Lycée Français de New York (LFNY), commonly called the Lycée (in English, "The French High School of New York"), is an independent bilingual French school serving an international community of students from Nursery-3 to twelfth grade based ...

, and P.S. 158. It used to house East Side Middle School students until the school moved further uptown.

References

Parks in Manhattan Upper East Side {{NYC-stub