The History of Parkway Gardens, a Bucolic Haven for Middle-Class Black Families

The photographer Gordon Parks, his wife Sally Parks, and their children in the living room of their new home, 1946. Estate of Arnold Eagle/Courtesy Gordon Parks Foundation (family) A fleet of limousines pulled into the cul-de-sac in front of photographer Gordon Parks’s bungalow at 15 Adams Place in the suburban enclave of Parkway Gardens, in Greenburgh, New York. Groups of African-Americans, dressed in their summer finery, emerged from the late model limos. It “looked like a car salesman’s paradise,” socialite Betty Granger wrote in her Amsterdam News column, “Conversation Piece.” It was September 12, 1954, and Parks, who was finding… Read Full Article