NY Society for Parks & Playgrounds

1st recreational organization in NY State founded as the NY Society for Parks & Playgrounds. In 1884, a Tenement House Committee was formed to address housing issues, and by 1889, the Brooklyn Society for Parks and Playgrounds was established—the first of its kind in New York State. In 1891, Charles A. Stover, former Mayor Abram S. Hewitt, and Columbia President Seth Low founded the New York Society for Parks and Playgrounds, a "moral movement, not a charity." The society lobbied the city, taught families to use play equipment, and ran an experimental playground on Second Avenue from 1891 to 1894.