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Doughboy Park

1957 establishments in New York CityMemorials for the September 11 attacksParks in Queens, New YorkWoodside, Queens
WoodsideDoughboy
WoodsideDoughboy

Doughboy Park is a 1.71-acre (6,900 m2) New York City public park in the Woodside neighborhood of Queens. It is located on a hilly parcel of land between Skillman Avenue and Woodside Avenue, and between 54th Street and 56th Street. The park land was originally obtained by the city as a play area for local school P.S. 11 in 1893. During the First World War, local soldiers met here before shipping off to the front in Europe. A memorial was commissioned by the Woodside Community Council for these soldiers, including ten who were killed during the war. The memorial was dedicated on Memorial Day, 30 May 1923. It features a statue of a somber, wounded American infantryman, colloquially called a doughboy. The bronze statue was created by Flushing, Queens based sculptor Burt Johnson, who also designed another doughboy statue in DeWitt Clinton Park in Manhattan. The statue was selected as the best memorial of its kind in 1928 by the American Federation of Artists.The terrain of the park was considered too steep for children to play on, and in 1957 the land was turned over to the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation. In 1959, the section of 54th Street between 39th Drive and Woodside Avenue was removed and converted to parkland, connecting the park to the adjacent Windmuller Park. Seating, paths, and trees were later installed in the park, and in 1971 the park was given its current name. A conservation project in 1990 restored the statue, and multiple upgrades to the park have maintained the park.Also during the 1990 renovations, the park gained another prominent feature: an accurately oriented compass rose embedded in the pavement, annotated with the names of the ancient Greek wind gods (the Anemoi).Since the installation of the statue in 1923, the park has been the location of local Memorial Day observances and other patriotic events. In 2006, on the fifth anniversary of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, a memorial plaque in the park was dedicated. It reads: On September 11, 2001, the following who lived or worked in Woodside died in the World Trade Center attack. Their lives touched our hearts, their sacrifice changed us forever.We remember them with love and honor. (34 names follow)In 2017, it was announced that Doughboy Plaza's seating area and 9/11 memorial would be rebuilt at a cost of $750,000. The project budget was later doubled, and the reconstruction was approved in early 2018. The project would be completed by 2020.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Doughboy Park (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors, Images).

Doughboy Park
55th Street, New York Queens

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Geographical coordinates (GPS)

Latitude Longitude
N 40.746272222222 ° E -73.908755555556 °
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Address

Kathryn M. Phelan School - P.S. 11

55th Street
11377 New York, Queens
New York, United States
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Woodside, Queens
Woodside, Queens

Woodside is a residential and commercial neighborhood in the western portion of the borough of Queens in New York City. It is bordered on the south by Maspeth, on the north by Astoria, on the west by Sunnyside, and on the east by Elmhurst, Jackson Heights, and East Elmhurst. Some areas are widely residential and very quiet, while other parts, especially the ones around Roosevelt Avenue, are busier. In the 19th century the area was part of the Town of Newtown (now Elmhurst). The adjacent area of Winfield was largely incorporated into the post office serving Woodside and as a consequence Winfield lost much of its identity distinct from Woodside. However, with large-scale residential development in the 1860s, Woodside became the largest Irish American community in Queens, being approximately 80% Irish by the 1930s and maintaining a strong Irish culture today. In the early 1990s, many Asian American families include a large Filipino community moved into the area, and as a result the current population is 30% Asian American. South Asians and Latinos have also moved to Woodside in recent years. Reflecting its longtime diverse cuisines, the neighborhood is filled with many cultural restaurants and pubs. It is also home to some of the city's most popular Thai, Filipino, and South American eateries.Woodside is located in Queens Community District 2 and its ZIP Code is 11377. It is patrolled by the New York City Police Department's 108th Precinct. Politically, Woodside is represented by the New York City Council's 22nd and 26th Districts.

Moore-Jackson Cemetery
Moore-Jackson Cemetery

The Moore-Jackson Cemetery is a historic cemetery in the Woodside neighborhood of Queens in New York City, active from 1733 to about 1868. It is one of New York City's few remaining 18th-century cemeteries and is a New York City designated landmark. The burial ground occupies a five-sided site on 51st and 54th Streets between 31st and 32nd Avenues. While the cemetery spans about 20,000 square feet (1,900 m2), all of the surviving tombstones are placed along 54th Street. The cemetery was part of the estate of Samuel and Charity Moore, members of one of Queens's oldest families, and contains approximately 48 corpses. The Moores bought the land in 1684 and owned it for over a century. Many of the cemetery's interments are family members of John, Nathaniel, and Mary Moore, three of the Moores' ten children. The tombstone of Augustine Moore (d. 1769) is the oldest that still retains an inscription, as many of the 18th-century tombstones have degraded to the point of illegibility. Though the family estate was sold several times after 1827, interments continued until 1869. John C. Jackson, a member of the Moore family, bought additional land near the cemetery in 1867. The Moore/Jackson family continued to care for the site until about 1910, after which the cemetery fell into severe disrepair. A survey in 1919 found 42 gravestones. After the cemetery underwent a period of disrepair, Works Progress Administration workers relocated the remaining tombstones in 1935 and raised the land. The New York City government seized the cemetery in 1954, and a fence was erected around it two years later. The cemetery deteriorated yet again through the late 20th century, though local resident Cecile Pontecorvo maintained it starting in 1974. The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission designated the graveyard as a landmark in 1997 following an unsuccessful attempt in the 1970s. The Queens Historical Society bought the Moore-Jackson Cemetery from the Moores' last remaining descendant in 1999 and subsequently restored it. A community garden was established in the cemetery in 2018.