Sylvan Place is the name of several places in New York City.

Sylvan Terrace, sometimes known as Sylvan Place, is a historic neighborhood nestled in New York City near Fort Washington consisting of antique rowhouses and cobblestone streets with coachlights leading up to the Morris Jumel Mansion Museum.

Sylvan Place is a former small street running from East 120th Street to East 121st Street, between (parallel to) Lexington Avenue and Third Avenue. The street signage still exists. The street's ground area now serves as Harlem Art Park, and the Harlem Courthouse's a frontage and parking lot.

Sylvan Court Mews, or Sylvan Court, is sometimes confused with Sylvan Place. Sylvan Court is a small dead end private street that is directly opposite Sylvan Place on East 121st Street. It is unpaved, and contains several 1880s townhouses.

Sylvan Place and Sylvan Court are the remainder of Harlem's old Eastern Post Road, which led from the city to Boston. The intersection of Eastern Post Rd, Kingsbridge Post Rd, and Harlem Rd Church Lane formed a five-cornered intersection, and the neighborhood that surrounded it was known as The Five Points. Sylvan Place and Sylvan Court meet at the former five points intersection.

Joseph Jacob "Joe" Foss (April 17, 1915–January 1, 2003) was the leading fighter ace of the United States Marine Corps during World War II and a 1943 recipient of the Medal of Honor, recognizing his role in the air combat during the Guadalcanal Campaign. In postwar years, he achieved fame as a General in the Air National Guard, the 20th Governor of South Dakota, and the first commissioner of the American Football League, as well as a career as a television broadcaster.

Born on a farm near Sioux Falls, South Dakota, as the oldest son of Olouse and Mary Lacey Foss, Foss grew up in a farmhouse without electricity. When he was 12, he visited a local airfield in Renner to see Charles Lindbergh on tour with his aircraft, the Spirit of St. Louis. Four years later, he and his father paid $1.50 apiece to take their first aircraft ride in a Ford Trimotor at Black Hills Airport with a famed South Dakota aviator, Clyde Ice.

In 1933, while coming back from the fields during a storm, his father died when he drove over a downed electrical cable and was electrocuted as he stepped out of his automobile. Dropping out of school, young Foss, at the age of 17, with his mother, took over the running of the family farm. Farming was made difficult by dust storms, which over the next two years took its toll on crops and livestock. After watching a Marine Corps aerial team, led by Capt. Clayton Jerome, perform aerobatics in open-cockpit biplanes, he was determined to become a Marine aviator. Foss worked at a service station to pay for books and college tuition, and to begin flight lessons from Roy Lanning, at the Sioux Skyway Airfield in 1938, scraping up $65 to pay for the instruction. His younger brother took over the management of the farm and allowed Foss to go back to school and graduate from Sioux Falls College.