Tompkins Square Park, Arbor Day, 1904.

Named after Daniel H. Tompkins, fourth Governor of New York and Vice President under James Monroe, the Tompkins Square Park site was once part of a salt marsh owned by the Stuyvesant family. The Stuyvesants transferred the land to the city in 1829, and between 1834 and 1850, the site was drained, graded, landscaped, and finally opened as a public park.

Arbor Day was founded in the United States in 1872 by a Nebraskan newspaper editor and later Secretary of Agriculture, J. Sterling Morton. It is a holiday (observed in most countries) that celebrates and encourages the care and planting of trees.