Melrose Playground

Courtlandt Av bet. E 154 St and E 155 St

Bronx, 10451

This text is part of Parks’ Historical Signs Project and can be found posted within the park.

This playground opened in 1954 as the Melrose Houses Playground. The neighborhood of Melrose was originally settled by the Morris family, who were granted nearly the entire southeastern portion of the Bronx by the British crown in the late 1600s. By the 1850s, the Morrises began selling their land to families, forming suburban communities surrounding Manhattan. Around that time Melrose was given its name by the Scottish surveyor Andrew Finlay, paying tribute to Sir Walter Scott’s literary work Melrose Abbey, a popular piece at the time.