Vincent F. Albano Jr. Playground

2 Ave. bet. E. 29 St. and E. 30 St.

Manhattan

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

This Kips Bay park is located on a small portion of the site for one of New York’s most ambitious unbuilt engineering projects, the Mid-Manhattan Expressway. The Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority (TBTA) acquired the parcel at the northwest corner of Second Avenue and East 29^th Street as part of the right-of-way for an elevated highway, which would have run along 30^th or 36^th Street in order to link the Queens-Midtown Tunnel to the Lincoln Tunnel. Weaving among the skyscrapers of midtown Manhattan, this route was one of the many improvements envisioned in the Regional Plan of New York and Its Environs (1929). As head of the TBTA, the Department of Parks, and numerous other city, state, and independent agencies, Robert Moses realized many of the projects outlined in the Regional Plan and attempted many others.