Juniper Valley Park
55.247 Acres
Juniper Valley Park in Middle Village, Queens is rich in natural,
historical, and recreational resources. The park takes its name from the Juniper
Valley Swamp, which covered an area of about 100 acres from Caldwell Avenue
south to Juniper Valley Road. The swamp and surrounding area were blanketed
by a thick forest of Juniper and White Cedar trees. Before the site of Juniper
Valley Park was improved for recreational purposes, it was used variously as
a farm, a cemetery, a source for peat moss, the property of a racketeer, and
a garbage dump. The Pullis Farm Cemetery is located in the park on North 63rd
Avenue near 81st Street. Thomas Pullis bought a 32-acre farm in Middle Village
in 1822. The cemetery is one of the few surviving farm burial grounds in New
York City and dates back to at least 1846. A 1932 survey found three marble
grave markers: one for a child, one for "J.H.G.," and a third for Thomas Pullis,
Sen. and possibly his wife Elizabeth as well. In his will, Pullis prohibited
the sale of the cemetery, and he left instructions to build a brick wall perimeter
wall to protect it. Another portion of Pullis’s property was sold to the parish
of St. Margaret’s for the site of their first church, built in 1860. The park site formerly contained a substantial deposit of peat
moss—disintegrated and partially decomposed vegetable matter. A 1934
article in the Long Island Daily Press estimated that the peat bog measured
10 acres in area, 16 feet in depth, and 390,000 cubic yards in volume. During
the Revolutionary War, the British cut down almost all local timber for firewood
and ship-building, inspiring the residents to harvest the peat for fuel. Although
peat moss was commonly used in Ireland, it never became very popular in this
country. Juniper Valley Swamp’s peat source was almost forgotten until 1916,
when construction of a railroad freight connection sliced through the bog and
began to drain it. In the early 1930s the City of New York acquired the bog to
settle a $225,000 claim in back taxes against the estate of the infamous Arnold
Rothstein (1882-1928), who had been accused of fixing the 1919 World Series.
Rothstein had purchased land in Middle Village on which he erected 143 flimsy
houses with the hope of raising property values. Rejecting proposals to use
Rothstein’s "Phantom Village" as the site of a municipal airport or as the site
of the Queens civic center, government officials chose instead to develop the
land for use as a park. The bog was mined to provide landscaping material for
parks and parkways. The land and four adjacent parcels were acquired for park
purposes between 1937 and 1949. From 1941 to 1942, squads of Works Progress Administration
workers transformed the barren land into one of Queens’s most beloved parks.
Plans called for paths, playgrounds, fences, benches, a wading pool, and a variety
of athletic facilties for tennis, paddle tennis, badminton, handball, shuffleboard,
ice skating, and bicycling. Baseball and softball fields were built on top of
the Department of Sanitation’s former landfill dump. The extensive horticultural
program included the planting of 168 new shade trees, 2000 rose bushes, thousands
of shrubs, and vast lawn areas. Volunteer efforts have helped to green, restore, and maintain
Juniper Valley Park. At the Pullis Farm Cemetery, volunteers have weeded and
seeded, planted trees and flowers donated by the community, and installed flagpoles.
In 1997 the Lutheran All Faiths Cemetery donated a new gravestone in memory
of the Pullis family. Outside the cemetery walls are newly planted trees, including
evergreens, oaks, Flowering Apple, Flowering Cherry, and White Birch. Other
volunteers maintain the tennis and boccie courts, plant flowers around the park
house, aid in opening and closing facilities, and assist in keeping the park
clean and green.
Wednesday, Jun 21, 2000