The peninsula upon which the park is located faces southwest into Gravesend Bay, immediately north of the Coney Island Creek.

The park was expanded in the 1960s by waste from the construction of the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge, and was renamed after architect Calvert Vaux in 1998.

The park is located in the Bath Beach section (zip code 11214) where the Coney Island Creek deposits into Gravesend Bay.

[4] The Coney Island Creek is adjacent to the peninsula and the Six Diamonds sections, and contains a boat graveyard with over two dozen ships, many dating from the park's expansion in the 1960s.

It was named after the Dreier Offerman Home for Unwed Mothers, which donated some land to New York City's government upon its closure in 1933.

[8] As early as 1932, The New York Times mentioned that the parkland had already been set aside, and that some additional land was being proposed to "round out" the park area.

[9] At the Dreier Offerman Playground's opening on November 9, 1934, New York City mayor Fiorello H. La Guardia mentioned that it had taken five years to acquire the land, but that New York City parks commissioner Robert Moses had advocated for the project to start within five months of the acquisition.

[7][11] The dumping permit expired in 1972, and a group of six architecture students at the City College of New York were hired to redesign the park.

[16] The project faced opposition because it was seen as an unwarranted privatization of public parkland,[15] and many neighborhood residents saw the plan as "ill-conceived".

[20] In 2006, a small plane bound for New Jersey's Linden Airport made an emergency landing in the park after its engine failed.