Luther Gulick Park

Luther Gulick Park is a rare example of a space dedicated to two different people with the same name. It honors both Luther Halsey Gulick the elder, an educator who is remembered as the godfather of basketball, and his nephew, a prominent political scientist who advised President Franklin Roosevelt on government reorganization. Before this land became a park, it was occupied by the printing press factory of R. Hoe and Company, a major industrial presence in the late nineteenth century. The city purchased the site in the early nineteen thirties, and for over fifty years, it was known as the Bernard Downing Playground, named after a New York State Senate minority leader. It was not until nineteen eighty-five that the space was renamed to celebrate the civic contributions of the two Gulicks.