Annunciation Playground

Convent and Amsterdam Av, W 135 St

Manhattan

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

Annunciation Park is named after the nearby Church of the Annunciation. The annunciation, according to Christian doctrine, was when the angel Gabriel announced to the Virgin Mary that she was pregnant with the Christ child. The church, founded in 1853, originally stood on 131st Street to the east of Broadway in a building constructed in 1854. At the time, the neighborhood was a rural hamlet called Manhattanville.