Kissena Park

The story I know, is that Kissena is the Native American word for frozen lake.  Once it was the home of an ice company that cut ice blocks from the lake and sold them in the pre-refrigerator days.  The original settler families of Flushing ran a nursery that collected and sold trees from around the world.  Once, I  was told, aliens landed there, since the Queens Borough president's daughter had been an astronaut.  Some of what I was told was true.  The park runs north from Oak Avenue to Booth Memorial Avenue between Kissena Boulevard and 164 Street.  Tucked into a corner of Queens that is accessible on public transportation by bus and subway from Manhattan, its beauty is mostly a neighborhood secret. 

From Flushing Main Street at the end of the #7 line the Q25 and Q34 buses run up Kissena, and th Q65 goes up 164th Street.

With a few exceptions most of these pictures were taken on a Saturday morning walk in May.