College Point Sites

Located in College Point, this green space on the East River is built on the grounds of an old mansion. It was originally known as Chisolm Park: "In 1930 the City of New York acquired the mansion and its grounds for a public park. The Parks Department improved the property with a new playground, football field, roller skating rink, baseball diamond, and picnic grounds. Popular with picnickers, the waterfront property was known alternatively as Chisholm Park (a variant spelling of the Chisolm family’s name) and College Point Shore Front Park. Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia made the Chisolm mansion his summer City Hall...

The Poppenhusen branch of the Queens Library system, located in the College Point neighborhood of Queens, was constructed in the early 1900s. A WPA photo shows the WPA sign and explains that "new copper sheeting for roof is another improvement provided for the College Point Branch of the Queens Library system by the WPA," implying that other improvements were made as well.

"Under the auspices of the New York Department of Sanitation, between 1937 and 1944, three new wastewater treatment plants were constructed — Wards Island in Manhattan, and Bowery Bay and Tallman Island in Queens. These facilities were designed to reduce pollutants in the Harlem River and in the East River, whose dark and murky waters had some of the lowest dissolved oxygen concentrations in the harbor. During the summer months, dissolved oxygen levels were often zero, which caused unpleasant odors. The city and its waterways benefited from an infusion of funds from the Works Progress Administration (WPA), an ambitious public...