Poppenhusen Park

College Pl., College Pt. Blvd., bet. 11 Ave. and 12 Ave.

Queens, 11356

This text is part of Parks’ Historical Signs Project and can be found posted within the park.

Conrad Poppenhusen (1818-1883), entrepreneur and philanthropist, was born in Hamburg, Germany on April 1, 1818. After working as a whalebone buyer for a merchant in Europe, Poppenhusen moved to the United States in 1843 to set up a whalebone processing plant on the Brooklyn waterfront. In 1852, he obtained a license from Charles Goodyear to manufacture hard rubber goods, and he moved his firm to a farming village in what is now Queens.