Knickerbocker Village: Christmas Party 1934

I never quite understood what the open space between the two KV courts was all about.
In my days, 50's-60's, it was unused, a waste of space. Evidently early on it was an active "gated" playground to keep out the riff raff. This article clued me into that.
A party given for neighborhood kids featuring an appearance by Uncle Don of radio fame and presents from Jimmy Durante. The slide show above contains an Uncle Don jingle and related images. Tanahey Park on Cherry Street wasn't built until 1949. At that point the courtyard park was probably mothballed. BTW, there's an urban myth about Uncle Don. Evidently it's untrue:

The affable host finished telling his last story of the day, wished a good night to all the children in his audience, and sang his familiar sign-off ditty. As the station went to a commercial break, he leaned back in his chair, sighed, and said to no one in particular, "There, that oughta Uncle Don hold the little b.......!" Unfortunately for the ill-fated host, the engineer was late in cutting to the station break, and the host's disparaging remark was picked up by the still-open microphone and broadcast into millions of homes. The station was immediately flooded with thousands of telegrams from outraged listeners, and the humiliated host was fired before the day was out, never to broadcast again. Disgraced beyond redemption, he lived out the rest of his life in obscurity and died, an impoverished drunk, several years later.

Everyone has heard this story. And almost everyone who has heard this story has a friend or relative (a parent or grandparent, perhaps) who remembers actually hearing the infamous broadcast. At the very least, most everyone knows someone who recalls the national uproar caused by the incident, or who remembers reading about the firing of the hapless host in the newspaper. Very few of the people who recollect this event could tell you the name of that unlucky host, however, or recall the year the notorious broadcast took place. And even if you managed to find a few individuals who could supply some of these particulars, you probably wouldn't get the same answers from any two of them. How is it that so few people can provide any specifics about such a widely-known incident? Why do so many people unquestioningly accept accounts of this event as true, in spite of all the disparities and missing details? The answer is that this tale is one of the most well-known pieces of modern folklore — it is a classic among urban legends, and legends don't stand on detail. For the benefit of those who do have an interest in detail, however, let's take a closer look at this legend's background.

More on the story can be found here