Forest Park is a park in the New York City borough of Queens. Spanning , it is the tenth-largest park in New York City and the third-largest in Queens. Acquired between 1895 and 1898, it was originally referred to as Brooklyn Forest Park, since the original owner was the then-independent city of Brooklyn.
The park contains a forest. It sits on hills left behind by the Wisconsin glacier and is a haven for native plants and wildlife in the midst of the city's sprawl. In addition to the park's large full-time bird population, migratory birds pass through in the spring and fall.
Several trails are available for area residents and urban day hikers. Other facilities include playgrounds, a carousel, a running track, two dog runs, a pond, tennis courts, basketball courts, baseball fields, a skate park, and a golf course. The park is operated and maintained by the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation.City of New York; The Green Book Official Directory of the City of New York 2005–2006 Edition; P.265.
History Approximately 20,000 years ago, the terminal moraine of the receding Wisconsin Glacier that formed Long Island, known as the Harbor Hill Moraine, established a string of hills and kettles through the center of Long Island. The site of Forest Park was part of the ancestral lands of several Native American tribes, specifically the Rockaway, Lenape, and Delaware. The site was settled by Europeans in 1635 when the Dutch West India Company claimed the land. For the next two and a half centuries, the site was occupied by several private landowners.
Development
Planning The development of Forest Park dates to the early 1890s, before the City of Greater New York was created. At the time, the city of Brooklyn and the various towns in Queens County were not yet part of New York City. In early 1892, New York state legislators introduced a bill to create one or more new parks in Kings County (where the city of Brooklyn was located).; That May, the New York State Legislature passed Chapter 461 of the Laws of 1892,; which authorized the city of Brooklyn to identify sites for new parks. The legislation empowered the Brooklyn government to appoint a commissioner to "select and locate parks in the County of Kings, or adjacent thereto".
James S. T. Stranahan, the onetime president of the Brooklyn Board of Park Commissioners, originally envisioned one large park extending eastward to Jamaica, Queens, and westward to Park Slope, Brooklyn. However, Brooklyn's rapid development made this impossible; the largest remnants of this proposed landscape are Forest Park and the Prospect Park in Brooklyn. In conjunction with the park's development, there were also plans to extend Eastern Parkway from central Brooklyn to Highland Park and Forest Park. Although the extension of Eastern Parkway was constructed as far as Highland Park, the section between Highland and Forest parks was not completed because Cypress Hills Cemetery officials would not allow a roadway to be constructed directly across their land.
Brooklyn mayor Charles A. Schieren appointed a committee to obtain sites for new parks.; At the time, there were more vacant sites available in Queens County than in Kings County. By November 1894, Brooklyn park commissioner Frank Squier had suggested issuing bonds to buy land in Queens County; a public hearing on the site was hosted the next month. Squier claimed that the new Queens park would cost one-fourth as much as Prospect Park, which had been developed a quarter-century earlier,; and that it would be a park "for the poor man". Albert E. Lamb, a lawyer for the Brooklyn Parks Department, said the park was necessary because Brooklyn had very little park land per capita, compared with other cities around the world. After Frederick Law Olmsted's landscape firm Olmsted, Olmsted & Eliot published a report on possible park sites, Schieren's committee recommended in March 1895 that ten parks be developed, including a "forest park for immediate use" in Richmond Hill, Queens, east of Cypress Hills Cemetery. Only the Kings County government could allocate funds for these parks because of a law that prohibited cities in New York state from issuing large amounts of debt to pay for new parks.
Land acquisition In May 1895, Squier submitted a report to the New York Supreme Court, calling for the establishment of four large and six small parks in and around Brooklyn; the largest of these was the Forest Park at Richmond Hill.; The Forest Park site was selected both because it was near Brooklyn's Eastern District and because it was a forested plateau. At the time, the park's site belonged to either about 60 or more than 100 landowners. One lawyer, Sidney V. Lowell, asked the Supreme Court not to approve the Forest Park site, claiming that the site was unsuitable for park use because it was too close to Brooklyn and Queens' Cemetery Belt.; Nonetheless, Supreme Court justice Charles F. Brown approved the report that June, allowing the Kings County treasurer to allocate funds to buy these sites. The Brooklyn Times-Union estimated that it would cost about to acquire the parkland.
The Brooklyn Parks Department purchased the first parcel for Forest Park on August 9, 1895. A judge issued an injunction preventing further land acquisition that September after Nassau Electric Railroad president P. H. Flynn filed a lawsuit, claiming that the city of Brooklyn was overpaying for the land and that Squier had no authority to buy the land.; In response, Lamb said that the site had been selected following two public hearings and that Olmsted himself had recommended the site.; Flynn's partner Fred Cocheu also tried to prevent further land acquisition, claiming that the Kings County government could not legally acquire parkland,; but a judge refused to grant a further injunction.; Squier's and Schieren's political opponents claimed that the purchases were wasteful, since the park was far removed from the most developed parts of Brooklyn.
By mid-1896, nearly all of the land had been acquired at a cost of $1.3 million. The site had cost between ; the most expensive sites were along Myrtle Avenue, which ran along the border of the park. The newly acquired site was served by streetcar routes that traveled directly to Jamaica, Queens, and to central Brooklyn. After the parkland was acquired, land values around the park began to increase. The land acquisition was finished in 1898, and the Brooklyn government ultimately acquired 124 parcels. The park was divided by several roads and railroads, including Metropolitan Avenue, Myrtle Avenue, Union Turnpike, Woodhaven Boulevard, and two Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) lines. After Brooklyn had been absorbed into New York City, the newly merged city's controller Bird Sim Coler alleged that the old Brooklyn city government had overpaid for some of the land.
Initial development The Brooklyn Parks Department initially referred to the site as the Brooklyn Forest. Local media reported that the park would remain in its natural state "for some time", except for a roadway winding through the park. In 1895–1896, the landscaping firm of Olmsted, Olmsted & Eliot was hired to design a curved roadway for the park and to conduct surveys of the park. The early plans called for a road connecting two of the park's entrances at Jamaica Avenue to the south and Myrtle Avenue to the north, as well as a road traversing the park from west to east. A bridge was built in mid-1895, carrying the road across the LIRR's Main Line at the park's eastern end. To accommodate the road, the Parks Department had to fill in several valleys with up to of dirt. The Parks Department also awarded a contract for a metal fence surrounding the park, and the sidewalk on Myrtle Avenue was widened as well. Little other work occurred during 1896, except for some clearing and pruning of vegetation. The Union Land and Improvement Company donated an strip of land to the Parks Department, allowing the city of Brooklyn to construct a road from Jamaica Avenue to the park.
During the park's development, existing residential buildings were auctioned, disassembled, and removed. The Brooklyn Parks Department planned two additional bridges across the LIRR's Rockaway Beach Branch and Myrtle Avenue, though contracts for these bridges were not awarded until early 1897.; Contractors also built a fourth bridge to carry the road across a ravine, and the Parks Department spent $30,000 to convert a former insane asylum next to the park into an inn. J. G. Dettmer, who gave Brooklyn mayor Frederick W. Wurster a tour of the park the same year, observed that the park had "splendid" views but that the roads were still incomplete. There were also proposals to add a reservoir in the park to supply Brooklyn with fresh water,; as well as a suggestion to convert Forest Park into a military campground.
20th century A nine-hole golf course opened in 1901. The golf course was extremely popular, and so a clubhouse and another nine holes were added in 1905. A carousel at Forest Park was likely built in 1916, although the exact date of the carousel's opening is not clear. In 1919, a group of trees was planted near the park's golf clubhouse. When Woodhaven Boulevard was widened in the 1930s or 1940s, the former American Legion building within the park was torn down.
The carousel was destroyed in a fire on December 10, 1966; it was replaced by the current Forest Park Carousel, which opened in 1973. Jackson Pond was used for fishing and ice skating, but was infilled in 1966 to make way for a playground. During the park's centennial celebration in 1995, a hundred trees were planted as a part of Operation Pine Grove, funded by American Forests and the Texaco Global Re-leaf Program.
21st century The Forest Park Carousel was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2004. The Forest Park Greenhouse reopened in 2012 after it was renovated at a cost of $3.8 million.; The same year, some of the park's trees were destroyed in Hurricane Sandy and one fallen tree damaged the structure housing the Forest Park Carousel,; although the carousel itself was not damaged. The hurricane also damaged the tropical section of the Forest Park Greenhouse, which was renovated in 2015 for another $1.5 million. Other parts of the park, including the Mary Whalen Playground and some sidewalks, were also renovated in the mid-2010s.
Freedom Drive, within the park, was closed in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic; the local Queens Community Board 9 voted in 2025 to recommend that the drive be reopened. The drive reopened in December 2025,; but after Zohran Mamdani became mayor in 2026, other local residents asked his administration to close Freedom Drive again.
Description and features Forest Park is the third-largest park in Queens, covering in central Queens. Woodhaven Boulevard runs north–south through the park, dividing it into western and eastern sections. The western half includes several structures and recreational fields, while the eastern half consists largely of woodland. Jackie Robinson Parkway also runs through the park from west to east. As built, there is a central driveway running along the Harbor Hill Moraine (which passes through the park), connecting the western end of the park to the Long Island Rail Road's Main Line at its eastern end.