Recent good news for Central Park: the Parks Dept and the Central Park Conservancy have contributed $160 million for a new pool, ice skating rink and a recreation center in the park.

Recent bad news for Flushing Meadows-Corona Park: the NYC Council and the local politicians are supporting plans for a casino, a hotel, a theater, a restaurant, and a parking garage to be built within the park by billionaire Steve Cohen.

Do you think such a plan for an entertainment complex could be proposed for Central Park? I think not and they would be laughed out of the city, but Flushing Meadows-Corona Park is fair game for developers. We already have CitiField, home of the NY Mets, the tennis complex of multiple stadiums, and many large events throughout the year. We have lots of heavy traffic coming off all the major highways and plenty of parking lots throughout the park, yet cars park on the grass during large events. Even some green spaces have been paved over to create more parking for cars. There is not one public parking lot in Central Park.

Why does Central Park in Manhattan get all the love but there’s none for Flushing Meadows-Corona Park in Queens which is a larger park and has the largest lake in the city? It was the home of two World’s Fairs and has museums, a theater, a zoo, a pool, an ice-skating rink, ballfields, and picnic grounds and is used by more people than Central Park.

With all the sports complexes and big events, one would think we would have a world class park, but that’s not the case. Years ago, the Aquacade from the 1939 World’s Fair, which had a large outdoor pool and seating for 10,000 people,

was demolished for a lack of funds for upkeep. Many of the roads and paths are in bad shape and there are no bike paths in a park that has a bike rental concession. There is a lack of landscaping to help block out the fact that the park is surrounded by major highways. Central Park is in the center of Manhattan, but the landscaping makes you forget that fact.

I understand that money generated by the park doesn’t all go into funding for the park, it goes into a general fund for the City. We in Queens are not getting our fair share and that’s not right. Will the Parks Dept and the Flushing Meadows-Corona Park Conservancy stand up for our park’s future? Will our politicians? There is only so much park land and when it’s gone it’s gone and with all the development around the park in Flushing and in Corona we are going to need that parkland.

Steve Cohen promises that if he builds his entertainment complex, he will make big improvements in the park, we have heard this before. Don’t bet on it.

Richard Polgar
Maspeth