Gwen Ifill Park

What was here before?

This park was once owned by the Long Island Railroad Company (LIRR), which began with the incorporation of the Brooklyn & Jamaica Railroad Company on April 25, 1832. The enterprise originally planned to lay ten miles of track connecting Brooklyn and Jamaica before expanding eastward to the northeastern tip of Long Island in 1836 when the New York State Legislature chartered the Long Island Railroad Company.

By 1850, the railroad evolved into a passenger service for Long Island residents, an objective that was complicated by the LIRR’s centrally located main line bypassing densely populated coastal communities. As a result, throughout the 1860s and 70s, the LIRR faced competition from other railroads seeking to capitalize on the company’s lack of service. These railroads were ultimately consolidated into the LIRR by company president Conrad Poppenhusen in 1875.

In 1900, the Pennsylvania Railroad bought the LIRR and constructed tunnels across the East River, establishing a rail link from Long Island to Penn Station in Manhattan. In 1966, The LIRR was purchased by the State of New York and has since been operated by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA).

How did this site become a park?

The City of New York acquired the land in 1962 from the Rochdale Village Cooperative. Additional land for the park was acquired through condemnation in 1963. The tracks on the western side of the park references the former name of the site, Railroad Park.

This 16-acre park is a natural preserve and located on the Atlantic Flyway, a migratory path for birds which stretches from the Canadian Artic Archipelago to South America’s Tierra del Fuego.

Who is this park named for?

In 2021, as part of the second phase of NYC Parks’ initiative to expand the representation of African Americans honored in parks, this park was named for Gwen Ifill (1955-2016), a leading journalist, television broadcaster, and author who was the first African American woman to anchor a nationally televised U.S. public affairs program.

Ifill was born in Jamaica, Queens to Caribbean immigrants Eleanor Ifill and A.M.E. minister (Oliver) Urcille Ifill, Sr. She spent her childhood living in different cities in the eastern United States due to her father’s different assignments at A.M.E. churches.

Ifill graduated from Simmons College in 1977 and started working at the Boston Herald. She went on to work in print political journalism at the Baltimore Evening Sun, The Washington Post, and the New York Times as a White House correspondent.

After much interest from the networks, Ifill began her career in television at NBC as a Capitol Hill reporter. In 1999, she became the moderator for Washington Week in Review, the first Black woman to host a nationally televised political show. She was also the co-anchor for the PBS NewsHour. Ifill moderated the Vice Presidential debates in 2004 and 2008 and was part of the first all-women moderating team for the 2016 Democratic Presidential debates. She authored the New York Times bestseller The Breakthrough: Politics and Race in the Age of Obama which focused on African American politicians.

Before she died in 2016, Ifill was awarded the Peabody award in 2008 and inducted in the Washington DC Journalism Hall of Fame in 2009. She was posthumously honored with the Gwen Ifill College of Media, Arts and Humanities at Simmons College and was memorialized with a USPS Forever stamp in 2020.

Thursday, Aug 05, 2021