Samuel Paley Park, designed by Robert Lewis Zion of Zion & Breen on the site of the former Stork Club on the north side of East 53rd Street between Madison and 5th Avenues, opened on May 23, 1967 as the first vestpocket park. The 40-by-100-foot urban oasis, named in honor of former CBS Chairman William S. Paley's father, contains 12 honey locust trees planted in modified quincunx pattern, and a 20-foot-high waterwall, vertical lawn side walls adorned with ivy, and cobblestones set unevenfly to slow pedestrian traffic. The waterfall, flowing 1,800 gallons of water per minute, creates a backdrop of grey noise masking the sounds of the city. William Paley commissioned the park--part of his proposal for a vestpocket park for each midtown block in Manhattan. Zion designed prototype for park for 1963 Architectural League exhibition The Stork Club was one of the most famous nightclubs in New York during the 1930's-1950's. Owned and operated by Sherman Billingsley, a former bootlegger from Oklahoma, the club was a symbol of Café Society drawing celebrities and power brokers among its clientèle.
