The area which is now Co-op's still receives a great deal of recognition. Anne M Hutchinson was said to have inhabited a home in the area that is now Co-op City. Hutchinson was one of the earliest European settlers to arrive to America from Europe. She was a devout Christian and fled to this area after being religiously persecuted in New England around 1642.

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The majority of Co-op City remained a swampy marshland until 1960 when the  the FreedomLand Amusement Park opened for business.

The theme park was designed by Cornelius Vanderbuilt Wood, who was also an important part of

designing the DisneyLand themepark in Anaheim, California with Walt Disney.

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Woods stepped out on his own to design Freedom Land and it was truly one of a kind. On opening day(Father's Day Weekend 1960) the theme park was hailed the DisneyLand of the East.  The park was modeled after America and its most historic events and times in history.

There were sections of the theme park that were based on events such as the Great Chicago Fire, San Francisco in the early 1900s, Old  New York, and The Pioneering West with the Oregon Trail.

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The Park lasted only 4 years before the World's Fair in 1964 in Queens, NY arrived in the area and quickly tool all the already dwindling excitement away from the park that was $8million in debt by then.

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The plans for the new cooperative housing development that many of us know so well today was just what was needed to get the debt plagued park out of debt.

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Construction for Co-op City began in the late 1966 and was completed by 1968. The area continued to have major construction of new buildings until the mid 1980s with the creation of section 5.

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