File:Playground and shelters at Pine Woods Park, North Tonawanda, New York - 20230401.jpg

English: A view of the playground and shelters at Pine Woods Park in North Tonawanda, New York, as seen on a rainy evening in April 2023. A pastoral expanse of 29 and a half acres at the northeast corner of the National Register of Historic Places-listed Sweeney Estate Historic District, bounded by Christiana Street, Pinewoods Drive, Niagara Street, Schenck Street, and the Twin Cities Memorial Highway, Pine Woods Park has its roots as an integral element of the Sweeney family's vast real estate holdings in the area. Throughout the 19th century, as they were vigorously subdividing the land and selling off plots to homebuyers, what was then known as "Sweeney's Woods" or "Sweeney Park" remained privately owned by the family, and made a pleasant setting for the company land office, where the verdant environs set the tone for what was quickly becoming the most exclusive neighborhood in town. Aside from that, however, it was also used informally by area residents as a picnic grove and playground, apparently with the family's blessing. However, as the 20th century dawned and the supply of unsold parcels on the Sweeney Estate continued to dwindle, a realization took hold among the community that the future of the woodland was in danger, and they began to pressure both the company and the city government to make de jure what had long been its de facto status as a public park. Negotiations stalled, but were lent a new urgency in 1913 with James Sweeney, Jr.'s announcement that the land was indeed to be subdivided and offered for sale as residential lots. After a few more years of machinations, in 1917 a deal was finally struck, and the city purchased about three-quarters of the land from Sweeney's hands (the remaining ten acres consisted largely of lots that had already been sold to residents and in some cases built on; many of those homes, on the streets now called Pinewoods Drive and Louisa Parkway, are still extant). Almost immediately, the local Women's Civic Club took on park maintenance as its pet cause: among other improvements, they advocated for the name change to Pine Woods Park that became official in 1939, they planted many of the trees that still grow on the grounds of the park today, and they were the ones behind the construction of both the shelter buildings seen in the background here as well as the elegant stone entrance gate at the corner of Niagara and Christiana Streets which was dedicated in honor of longtime club president Carrie B. Root.