Liotti-Ikefugi Playground is a small playground located in the neighborhood of Tompkinsville. The entrance of the park is on Winter Avenue between Bismark Avenue and Westervelt Ave.

Bliotti_park_sign_400efore this lot was a playground, New York City used this land as a reservoir from 1909 to 1935. The New York City Department of Parks and Recreation took over this property in 1935 and filled the reservoir with dirt. This created a playing field for the local neighborhood. At this point in time, the park was named after William Winter.

In 1961, the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation renamed the park as Liotti-Ikefugi Playground. This park was renamed after Sergeant Carmine Liotti and Private First Class Lloyd Ikefugi. Both of these young men were Staten…

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slides_400One of the parks located inside the neighborhood of St. George is Lieutenant Nicholas Lia Playground. This park is bordered by the streets of Belmont Place, Wall Street, and St. Mark's Place.

Prior to becoming a park, the City had planned for the William T. Davis Park to be built here, along with a new facility for the Institute of Arts and Sciences. The facility for the Institute of Arts and Sciences was an old Victorian home that was willed to them by Emma Stone. When the Institute of Arts and Sciences looked into the building, they decided that it would cost too much to be able to fix up the building, so instead they demolished it in 1960.

By 1969, New York City had purchased this land from the Institute of Arts and Sciences to build a park. It…

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Dugan Playground is located in the neighborhood of New Dorp. This park is about three acres in size and stretches from Mill Road to Weed Avenue. Dugan Playground is bordered by these streets and is located between Tysens Lane and Isernia Avenue.

duganplaygroundplayunit_400In 1931, the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation obtained the land that makes up Dugan Playground. From the time that the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation opened this park up until 1974, this park was just an empty lot and did not have an official name.

In 1974, the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation updated the empty lot into a nice playground for the community and renamed it Dugan Playground. This park was named for Gerard P. Dugan.

Gerard Dugan was born in…

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Cedar Grove Beach, located in the neighborhood of New Dorp, is one of Staten Island's newest public beaches, though it is still currently undergoing construction. Cedar Grove Beach is bordered by Ebbitts Street to the north and the Lower New York Bay to the east and south. Once it has been completed, the entrance to the park will be on the corner of Cedar Grove Avenue and Ebbitts Street.

In the early 20th century this land was established as the Cedar Grove Beach Club. This was a private area that was used as a vacation spot. It included beach front bungalows, a clubhouse, a barn, a guardhouse, and garage structures.
 
At some point around the 1950s, urban planner Robert Moses arranged for a parkway to be built. This parkway would require the demolition…

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During the early 1960s, a school was constructed at 330 Durant Avenue in the neighborhood of Bay Terrace. This school became known as P.S. 53: The Bay Terrace School. At that time, an open area existed just below the school, which was monkey_bars_400made up of a little less than three acres of land. This open area was bounded by the streets of Ainsworth Avenue to the west, Greencroft Avenue to the south, and Redgrave Avenue to the east-P.S. 53 being its northern boundary.

Around the time that the school opened, the Site Selection Board of New York City decided that the site should be converted into a park. By 1970, construction began on this park, which would be operated jointly by the New York City Board of Education and the New York City Department of Parks and…

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