Upper West Side Park Dedicated For Opera Legend

UPPER WEST SIDE, NY — Legendary late opera singer Richard Tucker got a pretty good present for his 104th birthday: A dedicated park on the Upper West Side.

Parks department officials and local elected officials unveiled a dedicated nameplate Monday morning at Richard Tucker Park on Broadway and West 66th Street. The tiny park, which occupies a triangular space sanwhiched between three city blocks, had already featured a bust of the tenor.

“Parks are some of the best places to showcase music and we are delighted to celebrate the great tenor Richard Tucker, on what would have been his 104th birthday in the park named for him,” Parks Department Commissioner Mitchell Silver said in a statement.

The nameplate was unveiled Monday as part of a Lincoln Square Business Improvement District initiative to beautify the small park, officials announced in a press release. The BID, created in 1996, has worked with the Parks Department to beautify green spaces near Lincoln Center for more than 20 years.

A donation to fund the nameplate was made by the Richard Tucker Music Foundation, which is run by Tucker's eldest son Barry Tucker.

"My family and I are honored to have Richard Tucker Park as a lasting memorial to my father’s artistic legacy and thank Commissioner Silver, Manhattan’s political and cultural leaders, and Monica Blum, President of the Lincoln Square BID, for joining us today to help celebrate the dedication," Barry Tucker said in a statement.

Tucker was born in Brooklyn in 1913 and began his singing career as a cantor in a Lower East Side Synogogue, according to the Parks Department. Tucker went on to star in Metropolitan Opera productions for more than 25 years and is regarded as the best American tenor singer of all time, according to the department.

Photo courtesy NYC Parks Department