Forest Park, Queens

Forest Park is a park in the New York City borough of Queens. It has an area of 538 acres (218 ha), containing 165 acres of trees. The park is operated and maintained by the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation.

The Wisconsinian glaciation molded this land between 20,000 and 10,000 years ago and left the Harbor Hill Moraine, a series of small hills known as “knob and kettle” terrain, including Forest Park. The land was inhabited by the Rockaway, Lenape, and Delaware Native Americans when the Dutch West India Company settled the area in 1635.

The site of Forest Park was occupied by various landowners until the late 19th century, when City of Brooklyn officials looked for land for a large public park. In 1892, the New York State Legislature authorized the park search, and the Brooklyn Parks Department purchased the first parcel of this space on August 9, 1895, whereupon the name Brooklyn Forest Park was first used. Because of the numerous private landowners involved, the park had to be assembled in 124 parcels, finishing in 1898.

Starting in 1896, the landscaping firm of Olmsted, Olmsted & Eliot was contracted to provide a plan for the park.Frederick Law Olmsted surveyed the park and designed Forest Park Drive. Existing residential buildings were auctioned and disassembled and removed. A nine-hole golf course opened in 1901. Its club house, which was designed in the Dutch Colonial Revival style by the firm of Helmle, Huberty & Hudswell (who also designed the Williamsburgh Savings Bank tower), and which now houses the park's Administration Office, first opened in 1905.

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