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Hammels is an area of Rockaway Beach in Queens, named for local landowner Louis Hammel (1836-1904). Originally from Germany, he emigrated to the United States and lived in Elm Park on Staten Island before moving to Brooklyn. During the summers he ran the Eldert House hotel here in the Rockaways. In 1878, he gave land to the New York, Woodhaven Read more...
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This park honors Reverend George Warren Hinton (1880-1969), a dedicated pastor and active community member. Born in North Carolina, Hinton moved to Queens as a young man. There he served for 41 years as the reverend of the Corona Congregational Church. Much of his spare time was devoted to community service, particularly in the cause of health and social services. Read more...
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Hoyt Playground, as with the adjacent avenue, is named for Edwin Hoyt, a businessman who lived in Astoria in the 1800s. Edwin Hoyt (d. 1874) was the millionaire senior partner in Hoyt, Sprague, and Co., a dry goods business (clothing, textiles, and similar trade items), with Governor William Sprague of Rhode Island. Hoyt’s son, Edwin Chase Hoyt, and Governor Sprague’s Read more...
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This waterfront park was until recently an abandoned post-industrial area in Long Island City. Transformed into a space that offers fun and relaxation for everyone in the area, the new park includes a central green, a playground, a dog run, a bikeway, a waterside promenade, a basketball court, and a 13,000 square foot pavilion that contains comfort stations, concessions, and Read more...
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Located at the intersection of Springfield Boulevard and Jamaica Avenue, this plaza stands as a memorial to all the American soldiers who fought for their country. Originally built in honor of the fallen soldiers of World War I, this plaza has since been rededicated to commemorate the dead of all of America’s wars. It has been estimated that of the Read more...
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Queens Valley is a former name of Kew Gardens Hills, a neighborhood originally known as Head of the Vleigh. The latter name is derived from Vleigh Road, now Vleigh Place, which connected the town of Flushing to Brooklyn during colonial times. The road allowed travelers to circumvent Flushing Meadow, then an impassible swamp. During the 18th century, much of Head Read more...
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“The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.” This famous sentence contains every letter of the alphabet, and is used by companies worldwide to demonstrate font types. It is an example of a pangram, a sentence that uses the whole alphabet. Quick Brown Fox Triangle is home, appropriately, to a statue of a brown fox. The sitting area, tucked Read more...
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This park is named for the nearby Queensboro Bridge, which is also known as the Queensbridge or 59th Street Bridge. The 1960s band Simon and Garfunkel made the bridge famous in their song “Feelin’ Groovy,” also called “The 59th Street Bridge Song.” Dr. Thomas Rainey (1824-1910), a resident of Ravenswood, Queens, spent twenty-five years of his life and most of Read more...
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Frank W. Plaut (1884-1949), a native of Flushing, Queens, was active in the civic affairs of his neighborhood and also donated the land for this park. Plaut grew up in a house near the present location of St. Mary’s Cemetery. After his marriage to Katherine Siebert in 1917 and the later birth of their daughter Dorothea, Plaut and his family Read more...
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Of the numerous animal inhabitants of New York City, the most widely recognized group may very well be the Pigeon (Columba spp.), or Squab. Although most New Yorkers refer to these ground-feeding birds generically as Pigeons, the Pigeon family actually comprises 289 species of birds throughout the world. The most common American pigeon, the Mourning Dove (Zenaidura carolinensis) is aptly Read more...
