The Randall’s Island Park Alliance was founded in 1992 as a public-private partnership to work on behalf of Randall’s Island Park, located in the East River, separated from Manhattan by the river’s main channel. Between the Island and the Bronx flows the Bronx Kill, while the famous rapids of Hell’s Gate separate the Park from Astoria, Queens. The Island was once two separate land masses, Randall’s Island and Wards Island, which for hundreds for years were used not as a public park but as a location for a range of public facilities including a boys’ home, a hospital, and a home for Civil War veterans. Today, Randall’s Island Park is New York’s premier recreational destination.
