The Early Stages of a Park Development for Woodside's Filipino Community

CAROLINE MCCARTHY, HOST:

New York City is home to about 90,000 Filipinos, and more than half of them make their home in Queens. And in the Queens neighborhood of Woodside, there’s a busy strip of Filipino-owned businesses and restaurants known as Little Manila Avenue. A couple blocks down is a long-vacant lot. What’s so important about this lot? Well, a local group is working to create a new center for the Filipino community here. Hannah Lorenzo has the story.  

HANNAH LORENZO, BYLINE: On a sunny spring afternoon in Woodside, a dozen volunteers are cleaning up a fenced off city block. It’s pretty hilly and littered with logs and wood chips. Leaning on a tree is a rectangular green and white sign that says “Little Manila Park.” Keanu Reus is one of the groups here today, stuffing trash into large black plastic bags.

LORENZO: What are some of the craziest things that you’ve seen on the ground?

KEANU REUS: Just a phone.

Oh yeah, there’s also just like a scooter here that we took out. Like a kid’s scooter.

LORENZO: A fake Rolex.

REUS: There’s been a surprising amount of shoes just laying around.

Volunteers fill black plastic bags with the trash they find in the lot.

LORENZO: Caroline Pasion is a public relations officer for the nonprofit that will soon run the park. She says since February, they’ve made a lot of progress getting rid of the trash. And that the clean up volunteers have been kids and retirees, neighbors from the surrounding residential blocks, and from outside the community.

CAROLINE PASION: So it's been a great representation of everyone who really cares about designating this space for the community and recognizing that Filipinos have been in Woodside for decades.

Volunteers clean up trash in the lot where the new park will be for the Filipino community in Woodside.

LORENZO: The director of the park project is Noel Gamboa. Gamboa is also an architect, and the project began when he first spotted the vacant lot in the 1980s, not long after he moved here from the Philippines. Back then, he would visit the neighborhood restaurants with his wife to get a taste of the food back home. Then, he noticed this fenced-up and forested site.

NOEL GAMBOA: We always go through this lot. I always, as an architect, right, and as a planner, I've always asked myself, you know, why can't they convert this lot into something useful? Right. Because it's been idle for the last, you know, ever since the mid 80s.

LORENZO: Other communities in New York have long been identified by their names, like Little Italy, Little Senegal, Chinatown. But it wasn’t until almost three years ago that the main street in the Filipino neighborhood in Queens was officially named Little Manila Avenue. Gamboa decided that to help cement that identity, the community should also feature a Little Manila Park.

GAMBOA: That is key. Just to get the name, like, stamped, that was a big deal. So to me, that was, like, the catalyst of getting these people to recognize us as a people and as a community. Our vision is really to have a good, well planned and an attractive park that is representative of our name.

LORENZO: So how do you make a new park in New York City? The lot Gamboa spotted is owned by the state’s Department of Transportation. To convert it to a park, Gamboa received a permit from the department this past December. 

Gamboa also sees the park as a way to get more Filipinos involved in community efforts. Gheng Pingol is one of the project volunteers—recently she had a rotator cuff operation. But today—she’s back out raking the leaves. She also handles the financial side of the park project.

GHENG PINGOL: I want something that serves the community. This is more like, you know, for everyone. So I really believe in this, and I think people will treasure this.

LORENZO: Marty Orozco is another volunteer. He’s also a member of Anakbayan Queens, a youth group that organizes cultural and political events within the Filipino community.

MARTY OROZCO: From what I understand, Noel’s planning on having, like, a gazebo over there. Planning a lot of community events. Have a lot of community outreach over here. Both with our orgs, and who else is here? Malaya is here too, like, so a lot of potential, like opportunity for, like, good things to happen in this park.    

LORENZO: Caroline Pasion says the design of the park will also acknowledge the different communities existing in the Philippines.

PASION: And we envision having at least three gazebos that would represent the three big regions of the Philippines. It would be Luzon, Mindanao, and the Visayas regions of the Philippines.

XENIA DIENTE: You can just see the potential of like the kind of different Filipino events that could happen in that park. It's a different kind of way for community to gather so close to the heart of Little Manila.

LORENZO: That’s Xenia Diente—the co-founder of a grassroots arts organization that supports Filipino artists. She was raised in Woodside and still lives there. Diente says she was excited when she first heard of Gamboa’s plans to make a Little Manila Park. 

DIENTE: Both for Little Manila getting on the map literally, and then supporting public space and the beautification, and making Little Manila more known. 

LORENZO: But Diente also says that Gamboa may face new challenges after it opens. Especially since the park is on the edge of a residential area.

DIENTE: So the timing and working with the neighbors and quiet hours, and keeping things clean at certain points or making that a wonderful public space for the community, as well as balancing it with the neighbors next door.

LORENZO: And that’s another of Gamboa’s goals for the park—making Woodside a cultural destination that will bring more New Yorkers to the Filipino community.

GAMBOA: Express the richness of Pinoy culture and share it and encourage the other nearby cultures also to join us. Because this is what makes our colorful fabric. What makes the city excellent.

LORENZO: For now, the park’s clean up continues, along with fundraising. And the group plans for a soft opening of the park later this year. 

Hannah Lorenzo, Columbia Radio News.

Correction

May 1, 2025

An earlier version of the story incorrectly identified the lot’s owner as New York City’s Department of Transportation, and stated that Noel Gamboa approached a Queens Community Board for a permit.

The lot is owned by New York state’s Department of Transportation, and Gamboa received a permit for the park from this department. The story also incorrectly stated that Xenia Diente was born in Woodside. Diente was born in Manhattan and raised in Woodside.