Travers Park
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Travers Park is a 2-acre (8,100 m2) community park and playground in Jackson Heights, Queens, New York. It is located between 77th and 78th Streets, on the north side of 34th Avenue. {Coord|40.75373|-73.88929|display=title}} Every Sunday from May through November it is host to a farmer's market that is part of the Greenmarket program operated by the New York City Council on the Environment.
Since 2004, it has been home to Summer Sundays in the Park, a performance series that features a wide range of music, both in style and ethnicity. The series includes a musical produced by Theater for the New City, and a show by the Swedish Cottage Marionettes, based in Central Park. The series is sponsored by the Jackson Heights Beautification Group, its committee, Friends of Travers Park, and beginning in 2008, the Queens Community House. It will be funded in 2009 largely through grants from the Queens Council on the Arts, which had provided funding for several of the earlier editions.
The park underwent a major renovation in the mid-1990s, vastly improving what had been a badly neglected playground. A series of green planting areas were created through the northern half of the park that still flourish today. Many of the shrubs, perennials and fencing protecting them are the work of Friends of Travers Park, which continues to maintain the plantings and provides community input to the New York City Parks Department.
On a sunny spring or summer day it's not unusual to see multiple activities occurring on the asphalt athletic area, such as bicycle riding, cricket, baseball, softball, soccer, tennis, and basketball. There is also a handball and a full-court basketball court. There is a place for toddlers, a section for a few waterworks and then a section for all the games. Due to the hardness of the surface people get injured; for this reason it is not an ideal sports venue, but as with many things in New York City, its park goers make do.
A movement to expand the park has grown starting in 2007. Related to this effort was the closing of neighboring 78th Street traffic from July to November in 2008 and 2009. The street functioned as a play street. The play street project was a joint effort by several organizations, including the Friends of Travers Park, JH Green Alliance and the Western Jackson Heights Alliance. The intention was to seek the closing of the street in 2009 to coincide with the presence of Green Market.
In 2010 after organizing a march to Community Board 3 to request their support, the organizing groups were granted permission to close 78th Street to traffic for the entire months of July and August.
Among great soccer players, on March 3, 2008, Zinedine Zidane and Steven Gerrard visited the park as an Adidas-sponsored movement to advance soccer in the US, filming a section from the commercial string 'Dream Big'.
