Riverside Park

Frederick Law Olmsted was chosen in 1873 to design both the park and the road above it, Riverside Drive, which opened in 1880; Calvert Vaux and Samuel Parsons Jr. spent the following decades laying out its promenades and river views. The original stretch, from 72nd to 125th Street, runs about four miles and 253 acres, later extended north to 181st Street where the Little Red Lighthouse has stood since 1927. Community organizing saved the lighthouse from removal in the 1940s after the George Washington Bridge made it obsolete, and it's still a Conservancy event site today.