Alley Pond Park

This park is the second largest in Queens, and the eighth largest overall in New York City. The site is named for The Alley, an 18th century commercial and manufacturing center formerly located here. The park, including 26 acres of newly constructed playing fields and the Alley Pond Park Nature Trail, the first such trail in the city’s park system, officially opened in 1935 at a ceremony attended by Mayor Fiorello H. LaGuardia (1882–1947) and Parks Commissioner Robert Moses (1888–1981).

Alley Pond Park offers glimpses into New York’s geologic past as it lies on a glacier-formed moraine, a ridge of sand and rock that formed 15,000 years ago, marking the southern terminus of the Minnesota Ice Sheet. The glacier dropped the boulders that sit on the hillsides of the southern end of the park and left buried chunks of ice that melted and formed the ponds dispersed throughout the valley. Geologists call these “Kettle Ponds.” Fresh water drains into the valley from the hills and bubbles up from natural springs, mixing with the salt water from Little Neck Bay. As a result, the park is host to freshwater and saltwater wetlands, tidal flats, meadows, and forests, creating a diverse ecosystem and supporting abundant bird life.