Memorial designed by the Emery brothers.
Memorial Day weekend is a great time to pack a picnic, bring the kids, enjoy river views, and visit the numerous memorials throughout Nyack’s Memorial Park. The park, located on historic property dating back to the late 17th century, was created after WWI to honor ten young men from Nyack who died serving their country. Both the park and the number of memorials has expanded over the years. A tour of Memorial Park memorials installed from 1920 to 2021 is a mind-blowing remembrance of those we have lost.
Historic Location of Memorial Park
1899 photo of the old “shoddy mill” at the foot of Hudson Ave. Courtesy of the Nyack Library.
The riverfront location of Memorial Park was an active place in old Nyack. The first settlers of Nyack, the Tallman family, built a mill on Nyack Brook that now borders the southern edge of Memorial Park. Sandstone was once quarried here along the Nyack Brook. The old mill was replaced by a sulfur match factory that hired and exploited young children as workers. By 1850, Storms’ Steam Tub and Pail, a woodenware factory, replaced the match factory, complete with its own wharf. This factory closed in 1877 and became Grant’s Flock Mill, popularly known as “the shoddy mill”; it made woolen yarn produced by tearing old woolen rags into strands to make a cloth known as “shoddy.”
DePew Greenhouses. Piermont Avenue is in the foreground. The house in the background still stands at the corner of Depew and Piermont Aves. Courtesy of the Nyack Library.
The DePew family purchased the 72-acre farm around 1800 including the aging factories. For many years the family was the largest taxpayer in Nyack. In 1854, the DePew family built a large Italianate house that still stands on Piermont Avenue across from the Memorial Park. The Depew farm was sold in chunks and was developed to form the business blocks on S. Broadway, Liberty School, the Post Office, the Nyack Library, and many other businesses and residences.
From the middle of the 19th century to the early 20th century the DePews maintained a commercial greenhouse along Piermont Ave. In the later years, the greenhouse was in what is now the upper part of Memorial Park. At one time, 18,000 roses were cut every morning and shipped by boat to New York City.
How Memorial Park Came About
The WWI honorees.
The war-to-end-all-wars took many lives. In Nyack, ten young men lost their lives during the brief, fierce fighting at the end of the war. The idea for a memorial park was the brainchild of many people including Nyack Mayor James Pacey, and New York Supreme Court Justice Arthur S. Tompkins. Many other well-known villagers were active in its inception, including pharmacist Daniel Shea, President of Nyack National Bank Augustin Voorhis, Mayor Theodore O’Dell, Mrs. Natalie Couch Williams, and businessman John Dailey.
The Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Park Association was formed to solicit donations, purchase the land, and solicit volunteers, to get the park ready. Originally, the idea was to build a large community center on the site. While that never happened, the Charles R. and Raymond O. Blauvelt (brothers lost in the war) American Legion Post was built just south of the Nyack Brook, on land deeded to them by the association.
Money was easily raised for the park, given the patriotic mood of the day and the land was purchased from the DePews on July 26, 1920.The landscape was very different in those days, with the factory and greenhouses on the upper level. The lower level was very small; during storms, it was covered in water. Most of the lower park was created much later.
Photo of the upper level of Memorial Park circa 1925 showing two cannons and flagpole. Note the the lower level is mostly underwater. Courtesy of the Nyack Library.
Volunteers showed up to raze the old mill and to landscape the park. It took months. Daniel Shea remembers merchants heading down to the park after work to help hammer and clean bricks. The greenhouses were easier to remove.
The Garden Club of Nyack handled the landscaping, including the border of nine linden trees in memory of the ten men lost (the Blauvelt brothers sharing a single tree). A tenth tree was planted in honor of Theodore Roosevelt. An eleventh tree was gifted by the children of Nyack and was christened the Tree of Light as it was lit for many years at Christmas. Over time, the linden trees have been lost to storms. Six of the original trees survive, two replacements have been planted.
Becoming a Nyack Village Park
A 1970 concert in the old gazebo at Memorial Park. Onstage are Pete Seeger and Susan Reed. Courtesy of the Nyack Library.
Eventually, dues-paying declined among the Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Park Association until only three subscribers were left. In 1935, the association deeded the land to the Village of Nyack. A small playground, playhouse, and ball field took up the space on the upper level.. The playground was overseen by the Women’s Civic League of Nyack with attendance in the hundreds every day. In time, the league dissolved, and the Youth Recreation and Parks Commission of Nyack assumed control. For a period of a few years, starting in 1960, one of the finest skating rinks in the county was installed near the brook.
The lowest park of the park was created when the Tappan Zee Bridge was built. Concrete barges donated from the NY Trap Rock Corporation and Construction Aggregates were used to mark the eastern boundary of the park to create a six-acre addition. Fill was primarily from the old Route 9W roadway that was destroyed while the new bridge was built. However, there was not enough fill to complete the project, which is why we still see the remains of one of the sunken concrete barges today. The 1955 project became known as “Kilby’s Folly,” since the mayor at the time was John Kilby.
The Nyack Park Conservancy
A quiet moment on the upper level underneath one of the linden trees.
The park has seen many proposals for change come and go over time, some rather drastic, such as a proposal in the early 1960s for a 99-year lease of the northern part of the park for a four-story motel with a glass façade facing the river. The Village of Nyack Parks Commission provides oversight of the park and the abutting marina. In 2005, the non-profit Nyack Park Conservancy was formed by concerned citizens. Through donations, the group has enabled the village to create new basketball courts, the Nyack skate park, a butterfly garden, a state-of-the-art zero depth children’s splash pad, move the parking lot to the marina, and add a pedestrian bridge on the northeastern side.
Memorials on the upper level
World War I Memorial
In 1926, a memorial designed by iconic local architects Marshall and Henry Emery linked the upper level of the park and the lower level with a split staircase and a bronze plaque commemorating 423 Nyack residents who served in the Army, Navy, Coast Guard, Red Cross, YMCA, Salvation Army, and the students of the Army Training Corps. At the time it was the only way to access the lower level, so everyone had to pass by the plaques. Subsequent additions to the park, including a sloping lawn and car access via Hudson Avenue, have left the monument oddly alone beneath a tall flagpole.
Toni Morrison at the dedication of the Bench by the Road. Courtesy of Bill Batson.
Bench by the Road
Near the WWI Veteran’s Memorial is the Bench by the Road, commemorating the work of a freed slave, entrepreneur, and landowner, Cynthia Hesdra, who opened her house as a way station on the Underground Railroad. Dedicated on May 18, 2015 by Nobel Prize-winning writer Toni Morrison, the bench, one of many in the US, was completed under the guidance of local resident Bill Batson. The bench offers a stunning view over the old cliff edge, looking southeast toward the Tappan Zee Bridge.
Welles Crowther Memorial.
Welles Crowther 9/11 memorial
A mounted piece of a girder from the World Trade Center towers memorializes Welles Crowther, who lost his life saving others. Known as the Man in the Red Bandanna, Welles Crowther from Upper Nyack, is an inspiration to us all. The memorial was erected in 2017 as an Eagle Scout project by Christopher Walsh of Troop 2 Nyack.
Memorials on the lower level
Rex’s Rocks at Memorial Park.
Rex’s Rocks
Near the end of the Nyack Brook rests an in-situ boulder memorial to Rex Louie Bernstein, a native of Nyack who died suddenly in 2015 as a senior at Wesleyan College. Apparently, this was a favorite place he liked to go to with his dog. The serene location is set off by a series of tastefully arranged boulders and begs for a moment of meditation and remembrance.
O’Grady and Brown memorial.
O’Grady and Brown Memorial
A granite slab near the gazebo is marked with a bronze plaque to commemorate the heroism and valor of two Nyack policemen who were killed at Thruway Exit 11 in the infamous 1981 Brinks Bank robbery.
The “new” gazebo.
Marion Carpenter Gazebo
The gazebo has settled into a new location on the southeast side of the park, near the bridge viewing pier. The Memorial Park Gazebo was a gift to the Village of Nyack on July 4, 1991 by the Friends of the Nyacks, in memory of Marion Carpenter, a resident who was active in civic organizations and an ecology and gardening teacher at Wave Hill. The architect was Robert Wisner and the landscape is kept by the Nyack Garden Club, which also manages the nearby butterfly garden.
Just Keep Shredding memorial.
“Just Keep Shredding”
A cleverly designed skateboard serving as a bench near the skateboard park, memorializes Rob Andrews (1995-2019), a popular local skateboarder. A GoFundMe program was organized by Andrea Paul to pay for the memorial bench.
Jimmy van Heusen Playground
An anonymous and much-needed gift of $20,000 in 2013 funded new playground equipment in the memory of Jimmy Van Heusen. Van Heusen was born in New York State and has no known relationship to Nyack. But many have been delighted by his Oscar- and Tony-winning songs.
Memorial Park
Nyack’s Memorial Park has a rich history, and for its size commemorates a wide range of people and events in our history. The villages largest green space with public access to the waterfront is a place to give a thank you to those who served our country but also others memorialized in the park not only on Memorial Day, but on all days.
Photographs by Mike Hays unless otherwise noted.
Michael Hays is a 35-year resident of the Nyacks. Hays grew up the son of a professor and nurse in Champaign, Illinois. He has recently retired from a long career in educational publishing with Prentice-Hall and McGraw-Hill. Hays is an avid cyclist, amateur historian and photographer, gardener, and dog walker. He has enjoyed more years than he cares to count with his beautiful companion, Bernie Richey. You can follow him on Instagram as UpperNyackMike.
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