After the bus depot closed, archaeological excavations were conducted on the lot, which confirmed that the Village of Nieuw Haarlem, which the area was called, did indeed have a burial ground on the marshy area bordering the Harlem River. The cemetery was used for both freed and enslaved African-Americans. A map from 1820 indicates the land was leased by Nathaniel G. Ingraham and included a church and cemetery.

In 1879, upon receiving the property from his father, Herman Sultzer, opened Sultzer's Harlem River Park: an Amusement Park and "the Mecca of many chowder and lawn parties by Tammany leaders," according to a newspaper of the time. Sulzer had a flair for the dramatic, even in the after life! His death prompted a brawl between Sulzer's wife and mistress, not only over his will, but also his corpse It was eventually settled in court. In 1907, the park caught fire. The Kingston Daily Newspaper suspected the fire was "of incendiary action," citing multiple attempts before the incident to sabotage the park. Almost the entirety of the park was burned. Much of it was rebuilt the subsequent year, including a large building to replace the incinerated casino.

The fire marked the end of the Sultzer Park's heyday. With World War I approaching, president Ernest Sultzer sold the land to the city and the grounds were converted into a training facility and barracks for the 369th Regiment. The "Harlem Hellfighters," as the 369th was affectionately nicknamed, was an all-black infantry regiment of the New York Army National Guard. They were recruited in Harlem, trained at Camp Whitman in Poughkeepsie, and posted on this lot in New York City. Many of the men who fought in the 369th Regiment believed that their service in the Army would help combat racism, however, sadly bigotry continued. In April of 1918, the unit was assigned to the French Army because white soldiers refused to fight alongside black Americans.

With the war ending, the lot once again went up for sale. It was purchased by newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst to build Cosmopolitan Productions, a film studio formed in conjunction with Adolph Zucker of Paramount Pictures. Hearst named the studio after one of his magazines, Cosmopolitan, and produced a number of movies there including Humoresque (1920), The Mask of Fu Manchu (1932), and When Knighthood Was in Flower (1922) the most expensive film ever made at the time it was completed. Cosmopolitan Studios caught on fire in 1923, causing more than a $1,000,000 in damages. It was speculated that the source of the blaze was a car parked between two buildings. All of the sets and wardrobes were destroyed, but the film reels were saved. While Hearst quickly rebuilt his production company, he split with Paramount Pictures to merge with Goldwyn Pictures. Goldwyn offered Hearst a studio space in Culver City, California, where the newly-named Goldwyn-Cosmopolitan operated while the Harlem campus was rebuilt.

In 1924, Marcus Loew of Metro Pictures Corporation acquired Goldwyn-Cosmopolitan and re-named it Metro-Goldwyn. By the time the new building was completed, the film company was called Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer after a subsequent merger. MGM occupied the lot until some time after the mid-20th century, whereupon the bus depot took its place. Since the depot's closure, various plans have been considered for the redevelopment of the city-owned site. Beginning in 2015, New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC) has worked with the Harlem African Burial Ground Task Force (HABGTF) to perform archaeological excavations of the lot. According to NYCEDC, the site will include a memorial and cultural center as well as a community-serving mixed-use development.