Building a Park on the Queens Side Newtown Creek

The first park planned for the Queens side of Newtown Creek--the sadly polluted body of water that forms the boundary between Queens and Brooklyn--is coming along. New Yorkers for Parks reports that residents and public officials met recently to talk about "conceptual plans" for a creekfront park at the end of Vernon Boulevard in Long Island City. The park would add about 5,000 square feet of green space to the area and be directly across the creek from a park being developed at the end of Manhattan Avenue in Greenpoint.

GL caught a ride up the creek in July and got an up close look at its curious status, which is somewhere between post-industrial wasteland and busy industrial area. (Newtown Creek, for those of you keeping track, is the site of a 17 million gallon oil spill originated at an Exxon Mobil site 50 years ago.)

The Newtown Creek Alliance--made up of community members from both the Queens and Brooklyn sides of the bi-borough creek--is working to improve both the Creek's water quality as well as to improve shoreline conditions. Queens Council Member Eric Gioia has allocated $3,000 for design of the park.

There will be more two more meetings about designing the Vernon Boulevard street-end park. A final plan is due in October.

Gowanus Lounge would personally urge a retractable pedestrian bridge to span the creek in order to connect the Queens and Brooklyn parks and to provide a convenient way, particularly, for Greenpoint residents to access the subway lines that pass through Long Island City.