Crotona Park is a public park in the Bronx, New York City, United States. It covers 127.5 acres (0.516 km2) or one-fifth of a square mile (51.6 hectares or half a square kilometer), including a 3.3 acre (1.3 hectare) lake, the Bronx's largest swimming pool, and 28 species of trees.[1] The park is bounded by Crotona Park West (also known as Fulton Avenue), Crotona Park North, Crotona Park East, and Crotona Park South; Claremont Parkway and Crotona Avenue pass through it. The Crotona Play Center is in the western part of the park.
Robert Moses famously refused to realign the Cross-Bronx Expressway, which is located several blocks north of the park's northern boundary, to pass along the edge of the park and save a number of homes from demolition.
Late in August, the park is the location of the EmblemHealth Bronx Open, an International Tennis Federation women's tennis tournament with a $100,000 purse which features players in the top 100, who use the tournament as a "tune-up" for the U.S. Open which begins the following week. The Bronx Open also hosts the United States Tennis Association's National Junior Doubles championship for boys and girls age 14-16. Proceeds from the tournament benefit the New York Junior Tennis League.[2][3][4]
The park is referenced in Clifford Odets' play Waiting for Lefty, in Act III when Irv tells his sister Florence that their mother doesn't want her meeting her boyfriend Sid in Crotona Park.