All Parks and Playgrounds in Manhattan

The Tudor Malls, located in the southernmost section of Queens, are named after Tudor Village, a development of Tudor-style homes built in 1929, which marked the transformation of this area from rural to residential. The Tudor architectural movement grew during the reign of the Tudor monarchy in England during the 16th century. The term “mall” originates from the game of Read more...

This park is named in memory of Thomas J. Travers (1897-1958), a prominent Queens Democrat and Jackson Heights community leader. Born and raised in Manhattan, he attended St. Agnes Church and Parochial School and MacDowell Lyceum. He served in the U.S. Navy during World War I and returned to New York to marry his childhood sweetheart, Ann Desmond. They settled Read more...

Parks Commissioner Henry J. Stern named this triangle on July 21, 1997, after nearby Borden and Jay Streets. How do Borden and Jay equal Cowbird? Think about this play on words before moving to the next paragraph. Borden Street was named after the Borden Milk Company, which at one time had a plant here. Hence, the cow. And Jay Street, Read more...

This park, located on Bell Boulevard between 75th Avenue and 217th Street, was named Bell Park, and later Telephone Playground, in honor of Alexander Graham Bell (1847–1922), inventor of the telephone. The adjacent P.S. 205 is also named for the inventor, although Bell Boulevard takes its name from a prominent family in Queens history. In 1824, Abraham Bell, an Irish Read more...

This triangle honors Bernard Adolph Tepper (1925-1966), one of twelve Long Island firemen killed fighting a blaze on 23rd Street in Manhattan on October 18, 1966. Bernard Tepper was born on July 25, 1925 in Chicago, Illinois. Tepper attended school in Chicago, and after graduating from Tilden Technical Institute in June of 1943, he joined the Army Air Corps. He Read more...

This playground honors George F. Torsney (1896-1942), World War I veteran, New York State Assembly Member, and supporter of parks and playgrounds for the Sunnyside area. Born in Manhattan in 1896, Torsney attended public school until 1915 when he graduated from the New York Evening High School. To earn extra money he sold newspapers on the corner of 50th Street Read more...

This site references the historic Grand Street trolley line that once ran through this area. In May 1894, the first ever Brooklyn City trolley car entered Queens County. At the end of the month, the Grand Street line was opened, running between the Maspeth Depot and Broadway. The line was soon extended to Junction Avenue and across to Bowery Bay. Read more...

Tudor Park takes its name from the neighborhood of Tudor Village and its collection of 300 semi-detached Tudor-style houses built in 1929, which transformed the farmland into a residential area. Tudor buildings were built primarily in England with large upright timbers supported by diagonal beams filled in with walls of mortar or brick. Designed for a greater feeling of domesticity Read more...

Utopia Playground takes its name from a housing development in Queens that was never built. The Utopia Land Company planned to construct an expansive cooperative community for Jewish residents of the Lower East Side on fifty acres of land east of 164th Street between the communities of Jamaica and Flushing. The land was obtained for development in 1905, at which Read more...

According to local Native American lore, there once lived on the shores of Long Island Sound two tribes of giants. When they were at war with each other, the tribe on the Connecticut side would break off pieces of their mountains and hurl them at the giants on Long Island. The Long Island giants, because they had no mountains, would Read more...