HASTINGS — Nineteen years after it was proposed, and two years after its unofficial opening, a ribbon-cutting was held for Quarry Park on Sunday, June 23. 

The 5.5-acre site, located off the Old Croton Aqueduct Trail, south of Washington Avenue, was a marble quarry, a garden, and a dump during parts of its history, starting in 1828 and ending in 2002.

In 2004, the Quarry Park Committee was formed to plan its future. Hastings resident Christina Lomolino, who led the committee, helped cut the ribbon on June 23.

The four-hour grand opening, which was organized by Hastings resident Eileen Charles, featured 10 stations, eight of which highlighted periods of the site’s history. Re-enactors portrayed key figures from those periods.

Hastings resident Tim Ward, an artist from England, played George Harvey, an artist from Scotland who bought the quarry in 1834 and built a home from its stone. He sold 1.35 acres in 1838, for the Croton Aqueduct, and the rest in 1846.

Tom Tarnowsky of Croton-on-Hudson played Elisha Bloomer, a hatter who leased the quarry from Harvey in 1835 and who built an incline railroad that carried stone to the waterfront.

Photographer Fred Charles of Hastings and actor Gay Haubner of New York City played Arthur and Alice Langmuir. Arthur Langmuir, who was also a photographer, bought the quarry in 1936 and turned it into a park with a lake 25 feet deep. He died in 1941, followed by Alice in 1943.

Bill Logan of Hastings played Andrew Ryan, the Langmuirs’ head gardener, who inherited the quarry from Alice and attempted to raise chickens and then nursery stock there. He sold the land to a real estate corporation in 1950.

Finally, Mark Kaufman of Hastings played Harry Ellsberg, the brother of Daniel Ellsberg, who released the Pentagon Papers to the media in 1971. In 1969, Daniel turned over a box of papers about the United States’ 1950s and 1960s nuclear strategy to Harry, who was a resident of Hastings and who hid the papers at the quarry in 1971. The papers were lost during a storm.

The grand opening of Quarry Park culminated with a parade unique to 21st-century Hastings. The procession was organized by Bash the Trash, a team of artists led by Hastings residents John Bertles and Carina Piaggio, who turn everyday objects into musical instruments.