Woodside does not have enough parks. Neighbors in one of the most densely packed, park-starved corners of Queens have said so for years. So a group of them stopped waiting for the city and did it themselves. On June 13, they cut the ribbon on Little Manila Park, a community green space they built by hand on an idle lot at the corner of 70th Street and 41st Avenue.
The name is deliberate. Woodside, along with neighboring parts of Queens, is home to one of the largest Filipino-American communities in the city, and the new park is a tribute to it, a Little Manila planted in the middle of the neighborhood to mark who lives here and what they built. For a community that often goes overlooked in talk about Queens, that name on the park sign is a permanent claim to the place.
It got built the Filipino way, through what the community calls bayanihan, the tradition of neighbors pooling labor to get something done that no single person could manage alone. An empty lot does not become a park on its own. It took people showing up with tools and time, weekend after weekend, to clear it, plant it, and make it somewhere you would want to sit.
The benefit is bigger than the square footage. In a neighborhood short on green space, a new patch of it gives kids somewhere to be outside, elders somewhere to sit, and a mixed block of neighbors a place to run into each other. Woodside is one of the most diverse places on earth, and a small park at a busy corner gives that mix of people some common ground.
If you live nearby, use it. A park only stays a park if the neighborhood keeps showing up for it. Visit Little Manila Park at 70th Street and 41st Avenue, find out who organized the build, and ask whether they still need volunteers or donations.
Featured image: Bushwick Daily image
