START: The Unisphere, Flushing Meadows - Corona Park, Queens
FINISH: Grand Army Plaza, Brooklyn
DISTANCE: 13.1 miles (21.1 kilometers).
DIFFICULTY: Easy with long and gentle climbs on 34 Avenue and Vanderbilt Avenue.
Turn sheet is at https://goo.gl/maps/9codK36QCjjFk7KXA
Map courtesy Google Maps.
Profile of this ride, courtesy Google Maps.
This is one of my two regular return routes from Flushing Meadows. A lot of this route is along bike lanes and bike paths, including the northern part of the Brooklyn Waterfront Greenway.
Start from the Unisphere past the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center, north paralleling the Grand Central Parkway, underneath Roosevelt Avenue and the elevated no. 7 subway line, past the parking lot for Citi Field. The parking lot is where Shea Stadium once stood. Go left toward the elevated highway, then left again onto the bike path leading to 34 Avenue. This is a longtime bike route and since the pandemic much of it has been closed to cars as an Open Street. Watch this video. Don’t be too concerned about having to take your time along here.
Wind through Woodside and Sunnyside Gardens, an English-style garden community built in the 1920s. Continue along Skillman Avenue, right on Queens Boulevard over the rail yard, left on Jackson Avenue (be careful here!), left onto the Pulaski Bridge bikeway, then to Franklin Street/Kent Avenue (the Brooklyn Waterfront Greenway), past the Brooklyn Navy Yard and on to Grand Army Plaza.
Some points of interest along the way:
Sunnyside Gardens. Built in the 1920s as a garden community close to Manhattan, accessible by the then-new Flushing subway line (today’s no. 7 line). This leafy community of attached two-story brick houses has common back yards. You’ll get a good look riding along 39 Avenue and 48 Street.
P.S. 1, on Jackson Avenue. This was built in 1892 as Public School 1 in the then-independent municipality of Long Island City. It was absorbed into New York City, along with the rest of the western half of Queens County, in 1898. (The eastern half did not become part of the city and is today’s Nassau County.) P.S. 1 is now an outpost of the Museum of Modern Art.
Astral Apartments, Franklin Street at India Street. From Wikipedia: “The Astral was built in 1885–1886 as affordable housing for employees of Charles Pratt's Astral Oil Works. It is a block-long brick and terra cotta building in the Queen Anne style.” It certainly is grand. Charles Pratt made his fortune in kerosene and would found the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, a school of art, architecture, and engineering.
Domino Park, River Street (west of Kent Avenue), north of the Williamsburg Bridge. This new riverfront park incorporates some parts of the Domino sugar refinery that long stood on the site. Ships would unload sugar cane directly to the refinery. This is a beautiful and very popular park. At its southern end is Grand Ferry Park, on the site of the former landing of the ferry from Grand Street in Brooklyn to Grand Street in Manhattan.
Naval Cemetery Landscape, Williamsburg Street West. The Brooklyn Greenway Initiative (BGI), of which I was Board Chair from 2013 - 2019, created and manages this space. It is on the site of the cemetery that was attached to the U.S. Naval Hospital, which was relocated to St. Albans, Queens during World War II. The remains in the cemetery - most of them, anyway - were reinterred elsewhere. Some remains are believed still to be there. With funding from the TKF Foundation and spearheaded by BGI co-founder Milton Puryear, this was created as a contemplative space to honor the people buried there and to provide a quiet, green space for the community. Stop and visit, and find out more at brooklyngreenway.org.
Brooklyn Navy Yard. The Naval Cemetery Landscape is at the eastern end of the former Brooklyn Navy Yard, which has become a thriving industrial park that is home to Steiner Studios, Kings County Distillery, Rooftop Reds, ship repair, and much else. There’s a fine, free visitor center with bike parking on Flushing Avenue near Carlton Avenue. For tours of the Navy Yard visit my friends at turnstiletours.com.