A brand-new park was born over the weekend in one of the city’s most barren neighborhoods thanks to a determined community that refused to quit.
Woodsiders paid more than $75,000 out of their own pockets and spent countless hours building Little Manila Park in Queens from the ground up to honor local healthcare workers who risked their lives during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“This is a product of ‘bayanihan,’ ” said Dori Gamboa, who with her husband Noel made the dream of the park a reality.
The Filipino word “means a lot of love, helping out, hospitality, all for free. It’s a community. It’s a labor of love,” she said.
“When you translate it to English, the root word is ‘hero.’ ”
The parkspace was built from a trash- and foliage-filled lot wedged between 70th Avenue, 41st Street and the roaring Brooklyn-Queens Expressway that had sat unused for decades.
Woodside has one of the smallest amounts of green space throughout the entire five boroughs — with just about 2 square feet per capita of parks in the neighborhood.
There have been numerous attempts over the years to transform the state Department of Transportation-owned eyesore into a park, but each buckled under the long bureaucratic process — until the Gamboas stepped up to the plate in 2022.
The couple said they were inspired to act after the City Council that summer co-named Roosevelt Avenue as “Little Manila Avenue” to honor the hundreds of Filipino community members and healthcare workers who risked their lives to serve the neighboring Elmhurst Hospital, the “epicenter” of the city’s cases during COVID.
“There were a lot of nurses and health-care workers and food-service preparers who refused to work because obviously because of the fear of death,” said Noel, who was raised in Manila.
“But not these people whom we are dedicating the park to.
“Filipino Americans, we have this tradition that, you know, we’re, you know, we’d like to be known as the very good caregivers. … We just want their story to be told because the ratio of deaths between these Filipino Americans and the rest of the world, it was very disproportionate.”
Noel, an architect, struck a deal with the state DOT to lease the property for just $1 per year under the condition that he share access to the community for free.
But he and his wife were left on their own to build the park itself.
The pair and other volunteers then spent two years applying for grants to pay for the benches, awnings, tools and other physical aspects of the park — but none were ever approved.
Instead, the community stepped up — with neighbors and friends donating more than $75,000 for the cause.
Volunteers also spent countless hours clearing the brush and trash that had accumulated in the space over four decades and transforming it.
“It’s amazing how many partnerships and relationships can develop when you have one project and people, all these different skills and connections and networks, and whether it’s elected officials or churches or community groups or people who live in the neighborhood who have something to contribute to this kind of project,” said Pastor Joseph Mantovani, who was one of the main organizers of the park.
Little Manila Park had been quietly open to the public for several weeks but was officially christened Saturday by Mantovani, a local Muslim group, and a dance blessing by the Cordilleran, a group of Filipinos who hail from the mountains.
Fitness classes such as yoga will take place throughout the summer, and the Gamboas hope to schedule one big party per month for the community.
