Chelsea Waterside

Chelsea Waterside

About

Chelsea Waterside Park • About NYC Parks Located at West 23rd Street and the West Side Highway, this park has undergone several transformations since its first portions were acquired by the City in 1907. Though its early history was connected to a working industrial waterfront, its current incarnation represents the reclamation of the Hudson River and the upland properties for recreational use. In 1907, five years before the survivors of the Titanic disaster were brought to nearby Chelsea Piers, a parcel of land north and east of the piers was vested to the city’s Department of Docks, which oversaw waterfront commerce. In 1915, this parcel was transferred to Parks, and in 1923 this small park was named in memory of Thomas F. Smith (1863–1923). Smith was born and raised in Chelsea, and studied at St. Xavier’s College on West 16th Street, before becoming a newspaper reporter. In 1892 he was appointed a stenographer for the Department of Buildings. Six years later he parlayed this experience into a promotion as Chief Clerk of the City Courts, a job he held until 1917. In that year he was elected a United States Congressman from Manhattan’s East Side, and in 1921 he became the Public Secretary. It was as Secretary of the Tammany Hall democratic political machine, a role he held for 25 years, that Smith attained broad influence as chief patronage dispenser. On April 11, 1923, while on his way to dine with an insurance executive, Smith was struck and killed by a taxi. Thousands attended his funeral service at St. Patrick’s Cathedral; the funeral procession was headed by John R. Voorhis, Chief Sachem for Tammany Hall, and the pallbearers included Governor Alfred E. Smith (1873–1944) and Mayor John F. Hylan (1869–1936). An editorial in The New York Times commented of Smith: “He had a marvelous genius--it was no art--for making friends. The gift of making everybody like you, the inexplicable charm, some unconscious efflorescence of a frank and winning character, a vital [Google Places type: park]