Liberty Triangle

Located in Hollis, Queens, Liberty Triangle is named for one of its neighboring streets. The parkland at Liberty Avenue and Hillburn Avenue was originally named Memorial Triangle, but NYC Parks Commissioner Henry Stern changed it to Liberty Triangle. The boulder in the center of this park is painted with the stripes of the Pan-African Flag, which was adopted in 1920 by the Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League. Led by Marcus Garvey, the group advocated for civil rights, group identity, and fostering of ties between all people of African origin.

In 1776, General Nathaniel Woodhull was assaulted and mortally wounded by British soldiers in Hollis. Woodhull, the Major General of the Militia in Queens and Suffolk during the Revolutionary War, was assigned to drive Long Island’s livestock east before they could be stolen by the British, who had recently defeated the patriots during the Battle of Long Island. A thunderstorm forced Woodhull to find shelter in a Hollis tavern where he was later captured by the British.  Legend has it he was ordered to say “God save the King!” but refused, instead replying in defiance “God save us all!”  Regardless of the story’s validity, Woodhull gave his life for his country, and is honored by streets named for him in Staten Island, Brooklyn, Queens, and the Bronx, as well as a neighborhood in Steuben County.

After the Revolutionary War, Hollis remained rural until the late 1880s, when Fredrick W. Denton, former supervisor of the Town of Jamaica and former Queens Highway Commissioner, acquired the 136 acres of land and created private lots. Denton had originally suggested naming the area for General Woodhull, but because there was already the Woodhull neighborhood in Steuben County, Denton named Hollis for his birthplace in New Hampshire. Denton provided land for the Hollis station of the Long Island Railroad, which played an important role in the growth of the community.  Because the railroad and subways run parallel to each other in Queens, the entire Jamaica-Hollis area developed as a series of longitudinal strips. Commercial development proved to be the greatest just north of the railroad, especially Jamaica Avenue in the Hollis community.

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the neighborhood grew with increased trolley service, the development of elegant Victorian houses, the creation of Hollis Park Gardens, and row houses lining the streets. Since the end of World War II, the area’s ethnic makeup has diversified, and today, Hollis is a middle-class, immigrant neighborhood.