It's Spelled Potamogeton Pond
I must admit to being stumped by a sign I encountered in eastern Queens, and found that it indeed was a misspelling. Eastern Queens has a collection of vast parks – the familiar Flushing Meadows-Corona Park, Kissena Park and its Corridor, Alley Pond Park, and Cunningham Park. (Aside from Forest Park and Astoria Park, western Queens is somewhat…
I must admit to being stumped by a sign I encountered in eastern Queens, and found that it indeed was a misspelling.
Eastern Queens has a collection of vast parks – the familiar Flushing Meadows-Corona Park, Kissena Park and its Corridor, Alley Pond Park, and Cunningham Park. (Aside from Forest Park and Astoria Park, western Queens is somewhat park-starved.) There are also parkways -– green spaces along car-only parkways built by traffic czar Robert Moses in the early 20th century such as the Belt, the Cross Island, and today’s scene at Grand Central Parkway. I was rambling along Bell Boulevard just north of the GCP in March 2011 when a sign caught my eye at the corner of 86th Avenue, which serves as the northern border of the GCP along with some relatively undeveloped parkland. It read: Potomogeton Park, which I assumed was a Native American place name. Googling it, I found that it was the common water plant with floating leaves, found in most parks. I never knew its official name, and the Parks Department hasn’t either, since the correct spelling is potamogeton, with an a instead of an o after the first t. Hey, it would have stumped me in a spelling bee as well. The name is actually Greek in origin.
I was also unaware of the bridle path along 86th Avenue, and since the nearest stable is in the Kissena Park vicinity I’m not sure it’s used anymore.
Pot(a)mogeton Pond is accessible from a staircase at 86th Avenue and 217th Street.
This is likely a small kettle pond left over from the glacial era and spared by the Grand Central Parkway construction nearby in the 1930s.
A short pedestrian trail surrounds the pond, which likely has some pot(a)megeton floating in it in spring and summer.
Just one more of those hidden surprises the guidebooks don’t mention.
I’m almost certain that this is the Pea (“Pee” – never saw the word spelled out) Pond from my childhood. Imagine, such an unpretentious name was actually shorthand for potamogeton. Until 1953 we lived at 89th Ave. and 216th St. It seems that P Pond is on the north side of the GCP which makes me wonder how or if we got there. Crossing the Parkway was an absolute no-no and the only way to get to the north side was via Springfield Blvd or Hollis Court Blvd. But we did a lot of walking around in those days. I would note that there also was a bridle path on the south side of the GCP.
Ha — I always thought it was ‘Pee.’ I used to get there in the late 50’s and early ’60’s from Hillside and Vanderveer by going under the parkway overpass about where the interchange (old Hollis Ct Blvd, I suppose) is now. As you did, we did a lot of walking, biking and exploring back then (“See you for dinner, Mom.”). Used to head to Winchester to Alley Pond Park (past Creedmoor?), then head down the Vanderbilt Motor Parkway (we didn’t know that’s what it was — it was just a nice road, oddly in the middle of the woods), then Pee/Pea Pond, then home via Hollis Ct Blvd.
I understand from posts on the internet, that the pond used to be called Pee Pond or Pea Pond. Search “Pea Pond, queens village”.