Foremost among new state park developments in the 1950s was the 1959 completion of a new state park on Barnhart Island on the St. Lawrence River, in present-day Robert Moses State Park (formerly St. Lawrence State Park) in the Thousand Islands region.
This facility was developed by the New York Power Association (chaired by Robert Moses), in association with the St. Lawrence Seaway and a joint American-Canadian electrical generation project. The park amenities were conveyed to the Thousand Islands State Park Commission once the power-generating complex was completed.
All traces of the rustic sentiment of the prewar period are gone. The form, materials and disposition of the park buildings convey a distinctly modern architectural sentiment. The buildings and park features exhibit the crisp, clean lines of the midcentury modern style.
The 1959 picnic pavilion, designed by the New York City architectural office of Slater & Chait, depicts the evolution of the open-air park pavilion from its interwar origins. Massive trusses rise from cylindrical stone bases and support a large, single-sloped roof. On either side are stone-walled enclosures providing restroom space.
Rising from the center of the open pavilion is a large stone chimney with fireplace that mediates against the structure’s otherwise strong horizontal profile. Evident in the pavilion is an emerging modern park aesthetic: sleek, functional, and clean lined.
The crescent-shaped arrangement of the original administration building, bathhouse, concessions building and dining pavilion – linked by a continuous covered colonnade – creates Barnhart Island’s signature architectural statement. The colonnade is characterized by its geometric forms and perforated, rectilinear roof.
The highly expressive dining pavilion is covered by an undulant, polygonal-form roof that takes the form of a symmetrical flower petal or six-pointed star. The roof is supported by twelve wood rafters that radiate outwards from the center. The principal rafters taper outward. Its bases bear on sandstone piers.
There is nothing rustic in this and other Barnhart Island buildings. They are thoroughly modern in form, treatment, and sentiment. Given the new park’s association with progress and modernity as expressed in the sprawling power project, this circumstance was fitting.
The Barnhart Island and Evangola buildings set the stage for the park architecture of the 1960s, when modernism would be fully embraced, in part due to its economy during a period of considerable expansion and growth.
This period of development in the state park system was marked by subtle transitions, with an increasing shift away from prewar design preferences to those better aligned with the postwar era. The evolution from rustic to modern park architecture indicated a change in aesthetic tastes and material choices.
Additionally, some examples portray a shift in how the public used state parks and exemplify the postwar growth of visitation. Barnhart Island and Evangola State Park set the stage for the full emergence of modernism in state park architecture during the 1960s build-out of the system.
Bill Krattinger is Historic Preservation Project Director at the Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation (State Parks). A version of this essay first appeared on the New York State Parks & Historic Sites Blog.
Illustrations from above: Barnhart Island postcard, Robert Moses State Park; Barnhart Island overlook pavilion fireplace (original construction 1959), Robert Moses State Park (Thousand Islands); 1959 aerial view of Barnhart Island at Robert Moses State Park; and the dining pavilion at Robert Moses State Park.
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