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East 111th Street at 1st Avenue Public Bath

Thomas Jefferson Park was originally planned and named in 1894, although the land was not purchased until 1897 and the park did not officially open until October 7, 1905. The original park design included two playgrounds, two gymnasiums, a public bath, comfort stations and a classical pavilion. A children's farm garden was added in 1911. Boccie courts and an outdoor pool were officially opened on June 27, 1936.

The pavilion and bathhouse structure supposedly stood on East River Drive and were vandalized to the point of unrecoverability by the 1970s. The pool and recreation center were extensively renovated in 1992 by architect Richard Dattner and the park was relandscaped in 1994. Presumably, the renovations cleared the remains of the bathhouse for expanded recreational area and if the current recreation center has no historical relationship to the old bathhouse, there seem to be no other vestiges of an earlier structure anywhere in the park.

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