Found 102 blog entries tagged as New York City Parks.

lieutenant_john_h._martinson_playground_1_400Over the years, you will find name changes of many areas and locations. This is especially true when major changes, such as construction, occur. Staten Island has had many name changes to its features. In fact, there was one park that had gone through three different name changes in a span of only fifty years.

In 1959, construction began on the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge. Officials believed that the construction of this bridge would allow for a major influx of people moving to Staten Island. If that were to happen, these new residents would need facilities which would cater to their families-such as parks. In 1962, a little parcel of land was acquired by the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation. It was located between the streets of Koch…

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Long overdue, the blight of former "Brookfield" is undergoing one of the largest remediation and transformations in New York State history. Now, Staten Island will be graced with one of the most picturesque parks in New York City.

If brookfield new park great killsyou live on Staten Island, there's a high chance you've heard about how the Fresh Kills Landfill will be transformed into a park in the future.  What you may not have heard, though, is that Staten Island is home to yet another landfill which will also be transformed into a park.  While it may not take up as much space as the Fresh Kills Landfill, it is still pretty big, itself.(Photo© Below A New Day Awakens Brookfield, Staten Island) 

From the late 1960s, up until the early 1980s, a 132-acre site above Staten Island's…

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You may recall the reasoning behind the naming of the neighborhood Tottenville, if you have read the historical information we have provided you with on our website. The neighborhood was given its name because of a post office which stood in the area.  In 1861, it was given the name Tottenville Post Office, after the first postmaster, John Totten. There were two factors in tottenville_pool_1_400giving the neighborhood the name of Tottenville.  First of all, the post office served the neighborhood. Second of all, the Totten family had grown to be quite prominent on Staten Island.

The Totten family was not the only well-known family on Staten Island. In fact, during the end of the seventeenth century, many people came to this Island from France and came to be recognized…

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Arbutus Woods Park is approximately two and a half acres of woodlands in the neighborhood of Huguenot. It is located between Arbutus Avenue and Stecher Street, with the entrance to the park being on Stecher Street. Arbutus Woods Park is
named after the trailing arbutus plant, which used to grow all over Staten Island, especially in this area, prior to 1940. It is now extinct due to the fact that many local residents used the plant as a salad vegetable. The trailing arbutus plant grows low to the ground; it has clusters of small pink/white flowers, trailing woody stems, and oval leaves that are smooth on top and slightly hairy on the bottom.

The park is part of the Arbutus Creek watershed. This watershed was given to the Department of Parks and…

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Long Pond Park is one of the lesser-known parks on Staten Island in Richmond Valley. You can probably get away with saying that it is hidden in plain sight. Long Pond Park is quite large, being about one hundred acres in size, but since this long_pond_2_400undeveloped land does not have any arresting entrances, most people do not even know it's designated as parkland.  It has in fact been in possession of the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation since the beginning of the twenty-first century. For the most part, Long Pond Park is bounded by the streets of Amboy Road to the north, Hylan Boulevard to the south, Page Avenue to the west, and Richard Avenue to the east. However, there a number of streets interspersed along Page Avenue, which basically jut into…

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If you ever took notice of the brand of pencils you used to use in school, there's a good chance you saw the name Faber on at least one of them. These types of pencils had become quite popular in the nineteenth century. Their origin, however, began dfaberbest_400uring the prior century. In 1761, German cabinet maker Kasper Faber began to manufacture his own brand of pencil in Stein, a town located near Nuremberg, Bavaria. After Kasper Faber's death in 1784, his son, Anton, took over the company. At this time, he changed the company's name to the A.W. Faber Company.  Soon after, the company's name came to be quite prominent.

You're probably wondering why you're being given the history of pencils, but quite frankly, they played a significant role in the history of one…

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About Woodhull Park, Staten Island

In March of 2001, Staten Island lost one of its most recognized activists: Lorraine Sorge.  Lorraine Sorge was greatly involved in the borough. She had been known for speaking her mind on topics such as the closing of the woodhull_park2_400South Shore's Staten Island University Hospital, the construction of a jail on Staten Island, and toll hikes on Staten Island's bridges. In each case, she was very much against each proposal.  At the time of her death, Lorraine Sorge was president of the Staten Island Taxpayer's Association, a non-profit organization made up of Staten Islanders of all communities who are dedicated to improving the whole of the Island.

Aside from being the president of the Staten Island Taxpayer's Association,…

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In 1867, Czechoslovakian Moritz Glauber immigrated to New York. After settling in Colorado and opening his own department store, he removed to Tennessee with his new wife, Elsa.  By 1910, the couple was living on Staten Island, where they owned a 35-acre estate.  In 1944, while living alone in New York City, Moritz Glauber passed awaysports_park_mini_golf_400.  On January 17, 1958, the estate was acquired by the City of New York, who transferred the site to the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation. Soon afterward, a little less than five acres were transformed into a park.

For about three decades, the park of which we speak was comprised of nothing more than vegetation.  This all changed on February 26 of 1991, when the New York City Department of Parks and…

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Bayview Terrace Park is located in the neighborhood of Annadale. It is made up of about two acres of land between Holdridge Avenue and Bennett Place, below Bayview Terrace and next to the ocean. There used to be a nice beach located next to the park that has submerged under water since the late 1950s. Now the park overlooks what is lef
t of the beach with a 17-foot drop down to it.

Bayview Terrace Park is a garden area created by the local gardeners of the area. Before the local gardeners came along to fix it up, the land used to be a city-owned lot filled with trash. In 1991, the local gardeners leased the land from the City to start cleaning it up. With rising rent prices, they went to Community Board 3 to get their help to transfer the lot to the…

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Veterans Park is on the North Shore of Staten Island in the neighborhood of Port Richmond. It is fully bordered by streets on three sides, and by a school and a street on the fourth side. Veterans Park is located between the veterans_park_400streets of Park Avenue, Heberton Avenue, Bennett Street and Vreeland Street, as well as by Public School 20.

Veterans Park is one of the oldest parks located on Staten Island. When Staten Island was consolidated into the Greater New York in 1898 there were only three parks on Staten Island. These three parks were Westerleigh Park, Port Richmond Park (now known as Veterans Park), and Washington Square (now known as Tappen Park). Veterans Park was originally designated in 1836, while the community of Port Richmond was being planned…

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