Flushing Meadows Corona Park may be Queens’ backyard—and home to the U.S. Open, the Mets and that Instagram-ready Unisphere—but a new report says the city has treated it more like a forgotten cousin.
According to the Center for an Urban Future, the nearly 900-acre park is New York’s most “overlooked” green space, a status earned after decades of chronic underinvestment, fading infrastructure and near-constant flooding. The think tank’s new study, The Park Queens Deserves, argues that while Central Park and Prospect Park have enjoyed splashy upgrades and private donor love, Flushing Meadows has limped along on just $100 million in city funds since 2012—over half of which went to sprucing up the New York State Pavilion, a relic that doesn’t exactly help anyone trying to play soccer on a swampy field.
The report paints a familiar picture for anyone who has dodged puddles around Meadow Lake or tripped on cracked pathways: one downpour can knock out whole stretches of the park for days. Even the Queens Night Market, a beloved summer staple, sometimes cancels because a tenth of an inch of rain turns its site into a lagoon. “A little rain puts parts of the park out of commission,” said architect Arthi Krishnamoorthy, a local resident and Queens Museum board member.
To fix it, CUF lays out 20 recommendations, ranging from practical (give the city’s Department of Environmental Protection, not Parks, responsibility for busted water mains) to audacious (covering highways that wall the park off from surrounding neighborhoods). There’s even a proposal for a dedicated “Flood Fund” that would capture revenue from Citi Field, the U.S. Open and other private operators inside the park and funnel it back into drainage upgrades.
Other ideas include reducing asphalt left over from the World’s Fair, adding Citi Bike docks and finally giving Queens its own marquee event—think a “Best in the Boroughs” cricket tournament or a mega BBQ competition. Foodies could get a win too: The report suggests turning the park’s informal pupusa-and-torta vendors into a proper market zone, plus adding a sit-down café outside the Queens Museum.
Despite the grim diagnosis, the takeaway isn’t despair. It’s that the bones of a world-class park are already there. Flushing Meadows draws hundreds of thousands of people every weekend for birthday parties, cricket matches, Zumba and quinceañeras. As Queens Borough President Donovan Richards put it: “It’s the crown jewel of our borough.” The jewel just happens to be in serious need of a polish.