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Joyce Kilmer Park

Grand Concourse
(between 161st and 165th Streets)
Bronx, NY  10456
Tel: (212) 639-9675
Map

• Parks

This park, bounded by the Grand Concourse, Walton Avenue, 164th and 161st Streets, is named after Joyce Kilmer (1886-1918), a poet, journalist and soldier who was killed on the Western Front. The park was completely redesigned in 1936, at which time its two monuments, the Louis J. Heintz statue and the Lorelei fountain, were placed in their present locations. The Heintz statue by Pierre Fietu was dedicated in 1909 in honor of the Bronx’s first commissioner of street improvements who pioneered the construction of the Grand Concourse. The Lorelei fountain celebrates the German poet, Heinrich Heine (1797-1856), author of an ode to Die Lorelei---a siren from German mythology who lured sailors to their deaths on the Rhine. The fountain was created by German sculptor Ernest Herter for the poet's home city, Dusseldorf. However, political groups opposed to Heine's Jewish origins and political views blocked its installation there. The fountain was finally erected in the Bronx in 1899, thanks to a subscription led by Americans of German ancestry.

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