PUBLIC GREEN SPACES
Forest Park is a windy and hilly 538 acres with natural hiking
and horse-riding paths through what is called “knob and kettle”
terrain, thanks in large part to a glacier that passed through
about 20,000 years ago. Despite a few years of lumbering and
a chestnut blight in 1912, the park is filled with healthy, tall,
natural growth, 150-year-old trees (hickories, black cherries,
dogwoods) that create canopies. Visitors can explore an
abandoned railroad station, a 110-acre, nine-hole golf course, and
two carousels. In the summertime, free concerts are offered at the
George Seuffert Bandshell.
Inside scoop: In 1911, an independent Queens branch of the
Parks Department, the Overlook, was established. Built in a
Spanish-Mission style, this building houses administrative
offices. Henry Miller, who wrote Tropic of Cancer (1934), was
stationed at the Overlook in the 1920s, when he worked as a
grave digger.
Address: Bounded by Myrtle Avenue, Union Turnpike, Park
Lane South, Brooklyn-Queens County Line and Park Lane.
Juniper Valley Park stretches over more than 55 acres in the
heavily residential Middle Village neighborhood. It offers space
for baseball, basketball, bocce, football, handball, soccer, tennis,
and track.
It was long a swamp until Arnold Rothstein, the gangster known
for fixing the 1919 World Series during the Black Sox Scandal,
bought 88 acres for development. He tried to sell the property
to the city as an airport during the 1920s, but he was murdered
in 1928, probably due to unpaid gambling debts. In 1931, New
York City acquired Juniper Swamp from Rothstein’s estate, later
converting the property into a public park.
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Forest Park