The Lower East Side, traditionally an immigrant, working-class neighborhood with a rich Jewish history, has in recent years experienced rapid gentrification. Despite A LOT of changes, many of the neighborhood's diverse local landmarks have survived into the 21st century.

Hamilton Fish Park, ca. 1982. Completed in 1900, this small park was named for Hamilton Fish, a Governor of New York, a United States Senator, and United States Secretary of State. The original park was formal in style with a Beaux-Arts Gymnasium, sculpted water fountains, symmetrical plant beds, and trees. After only three years, the park was renovated to include active recreation such as track and tennis. In 1936 the park was further altered by the addition of a WPA pool (one of 11 pools opened that summer). Today the park included the pool, a community center in the old gymnasium (with meeting rooms for neighborhood groups), basketball courts, handball courts, and children's playgrounds.

Hamilton Fish Pool, 1936. Designed in 1898 by Carrère & Hastings (of later NYPL building fame) the Hamilton Fish Park Gymnasium opened in 1900. The building, a grand Beaux Arts structure, was constructed as the first phase of the park's construction, and had only a small fountain and grassy area with benches surrounding it. In 1903 more recreational venues were constructed including tennis courts and a running track. In June of 1936 the WPA pool opened adjacent to the elaborate gymnasium. In 1952 the U.S. Olympic Team used the pool for practice sessions before the Helsinki Olympics. Hamilton Fish Park (named for a 19th century New York politician) underwent a $14 million restoration in the early 1990s, including upkeep on the pool. The gymnasium was granted landmark status in 1982 and is today used as a community center.

The 1930s were an important moment in history of recreation in New York City. In the early 1930s the Department of Parks came under the control of Robert Moses, who had very specific goals regarding citywide access to recreation facilities year-round. Moses employed the at-the-ready manpower of the New Deal's Works Progress Administration to create a spate of new, modern, and large-scale recreational facilities. This included the construction of 11 neighborhood Olympic sized pools. The pools all opened over a few weeks during the summer of 1936. The pools and accompanying play centers were constructed of inexpensive materials but featured advanced design and technology in filtration, chlorination, and heating systems and underwater lighting. Most were rendered in sleek Art Moderne styles. Each had a wading pool, lap pool, and diving pool and could accommodate thousands of swimmers at a time. In the non-summer months both the pools and the play centers were converted for paddle tennis, shuffleboard, volleyball, basketball, handball, roller skating rinks, and dance classes. These facilities in total had a capacity for nearly 50,000 people at the same time. They changed the way New York kids spent their summers. In a 1934 press release announcing the pools Moses said, “It is no exaggeration to say that the health, happiness, efficiency and orderliness of a large number of the city's residents, especially in the summer months, are tremendously affected by the presence or absence of adequate swimming and bathing facilities.”

Houston Street — that's HOW-stun, for the first-time visitors — has seen many changes since it was mapped as the southern boundary of Manhattan's famous street grid under the Commissioners' Plan of 1811. In fact, the 1811 plan was the first time the street, named for William Houstoun, was spelled "Houston." The misspelling stuck. Houstoun was the Georgia-born son of Sir Patrick Houstoun, a Scottish aristocrat and member of the state's colonial Government. The younger Houstoun represented Georgia at the Continental Congress and Constitutional Convention of 1787, where he met Mary Bayard, of the prominent Manhattan family, whom he married in 1788. The original segment of Houstoun's namesake street was part of the Bayard family's property. Over the ensuing decades, Houston was merged with neighboring thoroughfares (North Street on the east side; Hammersley Street on the west) until it spanned the breadth of the entire island. This walk covers the tumultuous early decades of the 20th century, when subway construction and increased automobile traffic molded Houston into its current form. Let's take a look!

Hamilton Fish Pool, under construction, April 26, 1935.

Hamilton Fish Park Gymnasium, June 29, 1938.