Monday, April 9, 2007

Kissena Park(ing Lot)

The former Booth Memorial Hospital is expanding. With the parking lot on its property being transformed into more beds for patients, where will the staff and visitors park? Not to worry, the empty land across the street, reserved by the city as parkland, but never developed- has been given to the hospital as a parking lot!
This was once a bocce ball court, but changing demographics have turned it into a small garden. In the background is the Corridor Park and the SelfHelp Tower.

Here's a view of the south from the 10th floor of the SelfHelp tower. You can see the hospital expanding into the park in the background. On the right is a small pond, a remnant of Kissena Creek that once flowed through this park. The Kissena Corridor Park was once the streambed of Kissena Creek, which flowed from Kissena Lake to the Flushing Meadows. By the 1950s, the creek was dried, and empty parkland was designated along its path. With the exception of a few baseball fields and small gardens, most of the corridor was allowed to remain untouched as a wetland... - by mazeartist

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Correction: I don't believe that the creek has dried up. I think it was piped undergroung. There are huge underground conduits that run under Kissena Corridor that a person can stand in.....I've been told.

Anybody know about these?

The only thing that's dried up is local gov't caring about NY Hosp's expansion running roughshod over the "corridor"!

Wake up call....John Liu! Stop snoring.....or admiring your publicity photos!!!!

Anonymous said...

Well again, let's have more people move in then we can justify doing just about anything we want to the people to support the impact this will have on infrastructure.

Its like the entire city has jump through hoops to reinvent itself to satisfy the IOUs from developer campaign donations.

Anonymous said...

College campuses, hospitals, and schools are all expanding and towering over neighborhoods in the name of public good. I can tolerate that, but expanding on public parkland? This is a cardinal sin in my book!

As for Kissena Creek, indeed, it does drain into a pipe that runs beneath the corridor.

Anonymous said...

Indeed, the Kissena Creek was run underground in large storm drains essentially from Kissena Lake to the Flushing River at the Fair site. I never explored them but my brother did, way back in the 60's. Not much in there but water and rats.