Glen Island Park

Glen Island Park is a 105 (0.42 km²) acre island located in New Rochelle, New York, USA. Situated on Long Island Sound, the park offers a variety of recreational facilities. It is also the home of Glen Island Harbour Club, a county owned, privately operated catering facility. The park is connected to the mainland by a drawbridge built in the 1920s. One of the main features of the park is its pristine, crescent shaped beach offering access to Long Island Sound. Cannons, sculptures and castles with coursed rubble stone, arched openings and round towers still remain from the late 19th century when the park was initially developed as a summer resort.

History

The Starin Transportation Company included nearly every tug boat in New York Harbor and a fleet of passenger steamers. Using his twelve steamboats as transportation, Starin designed an imposing family amusement park. Bright and colorful red and white covered footbridges connected the four smaller islands, each with a different international theme.

In 1881 the Park opened to the general public, attracting thousands of people daily. For a small excursion fee, steamships carried New York's prominent families to this chic summer resort to enjoy its bathing pavilions, fine German food and wines at the Grand Cafe, (now the Glen Island Casino), and the scenic beauty of Long Island Sound. The walkways along the harbor were lined with colorful flowers, classic bronze statues, and a natural spring that provided cool fresh water for thirsty visitors. Winding pathways led visitors through beautifully landscaped grounds with groves of shade trees, extensive flower-gardens, greenhouses, fountains, lakes and a formal Japanese garden, complete with a pagoda and teahouse.

A chain ferry transported visitors from a mainland dock . There was also a nationally recognized Museum of Natural History housed mummies fron 332 B.C., Indian relics of the Stone Age and other rare antiquities along with the first fire engine used in New York state, several meteors and a giant stuffed white whale. There were bathing pavilions which could accomodate eight hundred people, bridle paths, a miniature steam train and a zoo of exotic animals which included lions, elephants and trained seals.

The island's main attraction was a re-created German castle modeled after an ancient Rhine fortress. The arched entrance was broad enough to admit a coach into the courtyard leading to the Great Hall. In the Great Hall was the "Little Germany" beer garden where food and beer were served by waiters in Tyrolean dress. Ruins of the Castle remain today.

Starin's Island, internationally acclaimed as "one of the most beautiful spots in America," and "the first summer resort in the United States, if not the world"... preceded Disneyland as the first "theme park" by many years. . By 1882 attendance reached half a million and within six years it broke a million. In spite of the large number of visitors, Starin stressed the well-behaved nature of the crowds and the orderly character of the experience, governed by a 'middle-class code of conduct'. His desire was to offer an environment of order and civility which contrasted to the rough-and-tumble atmosphere of New York City. One of the effects of Glen Islands popularity in the beginning of the twentieth century was the building boom in New Rochelle, which had rapidly grown into a summer resort community.Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of this extraordinary park was that all attractions, rides and amusements were free. This era lasted nearly 40 years.

ln 1923, Starin's heirs sold the Island for $550,000, a million dollars less than the County of Westchester had offered in 1915,when officials had wanted to purchase the property for use as a garbage disposal plant. With the strong encouragement of the New Rochelle Chamber of Commerce and other concerned citizens.the County developed the site as a park and re-opened it in 1924 with a new bathhouse for Westchester County residents.