For Rufus King Park,
A Modern Renaissance

By Shams Tarek

Today, a few years after sweeping crackdowns by the Police Department, the gangs and drug addicts of Rufus King Park are largely gone.

So too is the dismay of many local residents.

As the playgrounds of Rufus King Park start to fill up with young children, their parents and workers from the scores of nearby businesses who bring in their lunch,  the park’s federal landmark farmhouse is undergoing a six-figure renovation. A group of more than 300 park advocates is hoping that a recent study will help elevate the space to the ranks of the city’s finest and evoke names like Central, Bryant, Hudson River and Prospect.

The Project for Public Spaces, an international non-profit agency based in Manhattan that helps people learn about and improve their local parks, just completed an 18-month study of Rufus King Park and how it’s used.

Jamaica Soccer School Manuel Orellana and Friends of Rufus King Park Chair Pat Ardezzone talked about the space at a meeting early this year. PRESS Photo By Shams Tarek

The results of the study, completed last December, were publicly unveiled at a Jan. 8 Greater Jamaica Development Corporation meeting by Pat Ardezzone, chair of the 321-member Friends of Rufus King Park, which was formed four years ago, according to Ardezzone, in response to gang activity in the park.

The 70-page report, called “Rufus King Park: A Vision for the Future,” was commissioned by the Friends and paid for by The J.M. Kaplan Fund, a non-profit philanthropic agency that’s also funding a $35,000 study of South Jamaica’s Baisley Pond Park.

Approved by the Friends of Rufus King Park after two revisions, the report is the most comprehensive ever done on Rufus King Park, Ardezzone said. It represents an exhaustive study of the distant and recent past, present and future of the 11½-acre park.

The report, which Ardezzone is using not only as a historical document but as a fundraising tool to get people interested in supporting the park, too, includes a detailed history of the space that goes back to the beginning of the 19th century, when Rufus King, one of the U.S. Constitution’s five original authors, bought a 122-acre farm where the park now stands.

In a letter to his son, King described the land as “a place in the country…about 12 miles from town,” the report notes. He describes the farmhouse known today as King Manor as a south-facing house “in a bare field, about one hundred yards back from the road,” referring to Jamaica Avenue.

King landscaped the area immediately surrounding his house with formal landscaping, but used the rest of his land for farming, importing plants and livestock from around the world. He also planted or maintained the now-giant oak trees that anchor and shade the perimeter of the park.

The Village of Jamaica bought King Manor and 11-1/2 acres of its surrounding property in 1897, the report says. City officials, who absorbed Jamaica as part of its jurisdiction in the 1898 consolidation of New York’s five boroughs, opened the space as a public park in 1900.

A 1912 Parks Department report, according to this year’s report, indicated that a baseball diamond and lawn tennis courts were installed “on the northerly side of the park,” and that the courts were periodically moved to protect the grass from excessive wear.

Later records, according to the report, show that the north end of the park “was being shared by different athletic groups: tennis in the spring and summer, and girls’ field hockey in the fall.”

The teens and ‘20s brought a bandstand and comfort station; the ‘30s, a modification of King Manor’s circular drive. In 1957 the city built the park’s playground and basketball and handball courts, as well as parking, now used by Parks Department employees.

A major restoration of King Manor and its surrounding park started in the mid-1980s, during which both were closed; they reopened in the early ‘90s.

Rufus King Park is going through a renaissance of sorts today, especially compared to the bad old days of the mid-to-late-‘90s, when gang members and drug dealers roamed the park.

King Manor had more than 14,000 visitors last year, the report notes; each of them had to at least walk through the park to get to the house-museum. There is no official count of visitors to the park. The actual annual attendance, then, may well be over 28,000, said Ardezzone.

The typical visitor to Rufus King Park, according to the report, is young (98 percent of visitors are 51 years old or younger), male (68 percent of all visitors are men) and part of a group (only 20 percent visit alone).

Combined with the fact that the north end of the park—traditionally the ball-playing part of the park to this day—is more heavily used than any other part, according to the report, the statistics suggest that most people using Rufus King Park are athletes.

But the report contradicts that analysis, noting also that the park’s visitors use it for “passive uses” (like sitting, socializing and people- and nature-watching) by a ratio of three to one over “active uses” like sports. The report calls the finding “one of the most surprising findings, considering the seeming prevalence of ball-playing and other sports.”

Fueled by the recent study and its suggestions, Ardezzone and the Friends of Rufus King Park have big plans for the future of their grassy piece of American history.

Some of them, like signage noting park rules to help curb harmful and illegal activity, have already been implemented. More signs are on their way, including some that relate historical facts about the park.

Other changes are more ambitious. In addition to installing a full-time steward and management system for the use of the park, Ardezzone said, the Friends are hoping to make a butterfly garden and start a bird watching program run by the Audobon Society. The park attracts plenty of wildlife, Ardezzone said, including two hawks that have started to roost on top of King Manor in recent months.

The Friends are also hoping to open a snack kiosk or café in the park, like the ones at the edge of Manhattan’s Bryant Park. King Park’s kiosk, though, would be staffed by people in 19th-century costume serving 19th-century food and beverages.

Also in the works, Ardezzone said, is an art show and an “international day,” a festival that would feature food and entertainment representing the park’s diverse neighbors.

With its recent study and a 300-member advocacy group behind it, Rufus King Park has the potential to be Downtown Jamaica’s “central park,” according to the Project for Public Spaces. But unlike the great green spaces of Manhattan and even Brooklyn, there’s no private or even non-profit money going into the park. People like Ardezzone and her Friends are hoping the community will come through.

“The Parks Department can’t do it now,” Ardezzone said. “If people want to improve the park, we need them to help do it.”