Queens Park Spaces Renamed For Notable Black New Yorkers

QUEENS — As of this week, three park spaces in Queens have new names that pay tribute to notable Black New Yorkers in the borough.

The Oval in St. Albans Park is now called Musicians Oval in honor of notable Black jazz musicians, Railroad Park, which was once named for adjacent Long Island Railroad tracks, has been renamed Gwen Ifill Park in tribute to the trailblazing journalist, and Flushing Bay Promenade is now Malcolm X Promenade.

The city announced the renaming in Queens along with 13 other park spaces across the five boroughs on Wednesday as part of an effort to "honor the Black experience in New York City” ahead of Juneteenth, the now-federal holiday commemorating the emancipation of enslaved Black people in the United States on Saturday June 19.

Mayor Bill de Blasio called the renaming effort a “physical reminder[s] of the contributions and legacies of Black New Yorkers across our city.”

In Queens, the new names reflect the legacies of notable Black New Yorkers with ties to the World’s Borough.

Musician’s Oval in St. Albans honors prominent Black leaders who lived in the area’s historic Addisleigh neighborhood, including jazz luminaries Ella Fitzgerald, Count Basie, and Everett/Shutterstock, and other figures like baseball legends Babe Ruth and Jackie Robinson.

Gwen Ifill Park is located in its namesake’s home neighborhood of Jamaica. Ifill, a trailblazing journalist, was the first Black woman to anchor a nationally televised public affairs program in the United States. $21 million has been set aside to rebuild this greenspace, according to the Parks Department.

Malcolm X Promenade honors the leading Civil Rights activist Malcom X, who was living in East Elmhurst at the time of his assassination.

The latest slate of new names — which include four Manhattan sites, four in the Bronx, three in Brooklyn, and two in Staten Island — aren’t the Park Department’s first attempts to honor Black New Yorkers in the city’s public greenspaces.

Since last June the agency has renamed 28 park spaces in tribute to the Black community — a part of their efforts to make the park system more diverse.

“We want to ensure that they [the greenspaces] bear names that inspire pride, encourage meaningful discourse, and represent the people it serves,” said NYPC Parks Commissioner Mitchell J. Silver.