St. John's Park

St. John's Park is a place that carries the weight of a vanishing history. Though it bears the name of a park, it serves today as the complex, teardrop-shaped exit plaza for the Holland Tunnel. Long before the constant hum of traffic defined this space, it was the site of a prestigious nineteenth-century neighborhood centered around a private, gated green space filled with ornamental shrubs, gravel paths, and over two hundred trees. That tranquil enclave was eventually sacrificed to the demands of a growing industrial city, beginning its long transformation from an elite residential square into a massive hub for railroad freight and, finally, into the infrastructure of modern transit.