User:Jondiaz121

Philosophy major at LaGuardia Community College student. I reside in Queens, NY.

Parks and recreation

Parks in the area include:

• Doughboy Plaza, bounded by Woodside Avenue, 52nd Street, and 39th Road. It was originally a children's playground but is now a landscaped triangle.
• Windmuller Park (now Lawrence Virgilio Playground), between 39th Road and 39th Drive from 52nd to 54th Streets. It was originally named after Louis Windmuller, a local resident who was a German immigrant and a businessman. In 2002 the park was renamed after Lawrence Virgilio, a firefighter who died in the September 11 attacks. The park's facilities include fields and courts for baseball and handball; a playground and spray shower; a running track; a swimming pool; and fitness equipment.
• Big Bush Park, north side of Laurel Hill Boulevard between 61st and 64th Streets. It was built on a plot of land created during the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway's construction in the 1950s and opened in 1987, sixteen years after construction started. The park's facilities include fields and courts for baseball, basketball, handball, and soccer; a playground and spray shower; and fitness equipment.
• Nathan Weidenbaum Playground, south side of Laurel Hill Boulevard at 61st Street. It was named after a local resident who was one of the first occupants of the Wynwoode Gardens Homes and advocated for improvements to the area.

St. Sebastian’s Church

It might come as a surprise to Woodside residents and church-goers that St. Sebastian’s Church was once a Loew’s Theatre! The Loew’s Woodside theater opened on September 27, 1926, and was designed by Herbert J. Krapp. The theater’s huge capacity—over 2,000 people—is still reflected in the vastness of the church’s interior today. The theater’s opening night featured a pre-release of Buster Keaton’s comedy film, the Battling Butler.

In the 1950s, the theater was sold to the to the St. Sebastian Roman Catholic parish, which outgrew its original chapel. Slowly but surely, the entrance and lobby of the theater were demolished, replaced with a Romanesque bell tower. However, the theater’s auditorium decor was kept intact, including the domed ceiling and 40 columns along the side walls.

Maintaining the theater’s interior beauty, today, St. Sebastian’s serves a diverse array of parishioners, providing Spanish masses and the occasional Tagalog and Korean mass.

Moore-Jackson Cemetery

The burial ground was created in 1733 on the farmland of Samuel Moore, the son of Newtown’s first minister, as part of 100 acres that included a farmhouse. After a man named John Jackson married into the family, the burial ground became the “Moore-Jackson” cemetery.

Calvary Cemetery

Since you now know about one of New York City’s smallest cemeteries in Woodside, head over to the largest cemetery in the country (by number of internments). Spanning both Woodside and Maspeth, the vast Roman Catholic Calvary Cemetery is 365 acres. The site of about 3 million burials, it is not only the largest, but also one of the oldest cemeteries in the country. Calvary Cemetery is owned by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York and managed by the Trustees of St. Patrick’s Cathedral.

Tower Square Shopping Center

The trolley barn was built in 1896 for the New York and Queens Railroad Company, which was established that year when the Steinway Railway Company and Newtown Railroad Company sold out to investors from Philadelphia who wanted to build a trolley line in Queens. During its existence, the building served trolley cars from Flushing, College Point, Jamaica, and Long Island City, and was the site of the largest carbarn in Queens.

9/11 Mural

You won’t find any big museums or exhibits in Woodside, but you will find the occasional vibrant mural. The major one to check out is the 9/11 mural commissioned by Woodside on the Move, a grassroots organization dedicated to “making Woodside and Western Queens a better place to live and learn.” Spanning the wall on 61st street under the subway station on Roosevelt Avenue, it was painted in 2011 to commemorate the 10th anniversary of 9/11 and our fallen heroes, families, and friends.

Two Former Child’s Restaurants

Child’s Restaurants, one of the first national dining chains in the country, once had over 125 locations when it peaked in the 1920s-30s—and it appears that two of them are right here in Woodside! Former Child’s Restaurants are scattered around the city, and you can still see some of their remains if you know where to look (and know to look up!)

The first former Child’s Building at 59-37 Queens Boulevard at 60th Street was built in 1931, according to Forgotten New York, when the designers started implementing more advanced decor. The building, now housing several everyday businesses, has a nondescript appearance. But this changes when you look up and see the terra cotta decor that was signature of Child’s Restaurants back then, including iconic sea horses, urns, and a coat of arms.

Woodside’s second former Child’s Restaurant is at 63-09 Roosevelt Avenue, now home to a supermarket, T-Mobile store, and other businesses. It was built in 1925, according to Forgotten NY. Sitting on the corner of one of Woodside’s busiest streets, most people walking by don’t think twice about this building. But history and architecture buffs will definitely pause and recognize its nautical-themed decor and knowingly appreciate the spontaneity it adds to Woodside.

https://untappedcities.com/2017/08/14/16-must-visit-places-in-woodside-queens-an-untapped-cities-guide/7/