This playground is located in the Glen Oaks neighborhood of eastern Queens. The name reflects the nearby crest of hills that form the highest elevation on Long Island. Once a part of Flushing, Glen Oaks itself is named after a golf course erected here in the 1920s that has since made way for high-rise apartment buildings.
Glen Oaks was originally a piece of flat terrain on the south side of the hills that form the backbone of geographic Long Island. This fertile soil, part of a 20,000-acre land grant to Massachusetts settlers, was eagerly sought by farmers in the 1640s. It retained a largely rural character until, in 1923, a new golf club purchased 167 acres from William K. Vanderbilt’s country estate.