{"id":202743,"date":"2026-04-19T20:18:07","date_gmt":"2026-04-19T20:18:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/202743\/"},"modified":"2026-04-19T20:18:07","modified_gmt":"2026-04-19T20:18:07","slug":"keeping-kings-point-park-green-focus-of-rally-against-parking-lot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/202743\/","title":{"rendered":"Keeping Kings Point Park green focus of rally against parking lot"},"content":{"rendered":"

Three days before Earth Day, about 200 residents gathered at Kings Point Park <\/a>on Sunday\u00a0to protest the potential that 2.48 acres of parkland could\u00a0be turned into\u00a0a parking lot.<\/p>\n

Last year, Asemb. Daniel Norber (R-Great Neck) and State Sen. Jack Martins (R-Old Westbury)\u00a0proposed bills<\/a> to transform the section of the 175-acre park\u00a0abutting the United Mashadi Jewish Community Center\u00a0into\u00a0parking spaces for the center. Martins’ bill passed, but Norber’s bill did not make it to the floor before the legislative session ended in June.<\/p>\n

\"Attendees<\/p>\n

Attendees at the\u00a0Kings Point Park rally look over a fact sheet about the park. Credit: Newsday\/James Carbone<\/p>\n

Community members who closely follow local politics\u00a0and attended the rally said they suspect the Great Neck Park District<\/a>, which leases the 175-acre park from the village of Kings Point, is getting ready to make another effort to take control of the 2.48 acres. Officials with both\u00a0the park district and the community center were not available for comment Sunday.<\/p>\n

The rally\u00a0was followed by a nature walk through\u00a0the park.<\/p>\n

“I am a proponent of wildlife and nature, the fauna, the floral,” Kathy Crowley, a Great Neck resident for about 50 years, said in an interview Sunday at the rally. “That they want to destroy Kings Point Park is unfathomable to me.”<\/p>\n

Carol Frank, 79, of Great Neck, also at the rally, said\u00a0the section of the park the district had considered for the parking lot, on Steamboat Road, was “key” because it’s the “entrance to this side of the park.”\u00a0<\/p>\n

“People just love the solitude of it, to be able to come here to walk,”\u00a0Frank said.\u00a0“We have people in apartment buildings who don’t have access to having a backyard. It’s extremely popular.”<\/p>\n

Frank said the park, much of which is protected wetlands, also keeps the surrounding neighborhood from flooding.<\/p>\n

“We have communities of trees and all kinds of vegetation, that’s also part of the watershed and also protects the neighborhood,” Frank said.<\/p>\n

In September, a group of residents sued the village of Kings Point, the village’s board of trustees, the park district and the Mashadi center in state Supreme Court to prevent constructing the\u00a0parking lot in the future. The village board’s\u00a0decision\u00a0was “arbitrary, capricious and contrary to law,” in granting environmental approval, the lawsuit stated.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Then, on Oct. 22, the respondents’ attorneys submitted an offer of judgment stating the village would withdraw its proposed request for the parking lot\u00a0to Norber and Martins. But residents believe the village will make another request\u00a0soon after an environmental review is complete.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Robert Lincoln, 80, a former park district commissioner\u00a0who attended Sunday’s\u00a0rally, said in an interview that “politicians need to see numbers.”<\/p>\n

“This is partly a concern about nature, and environment and watershed all that,” Lincoln said, as protesters sang Woody Guthrie’s “This Land is Your Land” in the background.\u00a0“It’s also about recreation programs that would be affected in a negative way. And we’re trying to stop it.”<\/p>\n

\"Joshua<\/p>\n

Joshua Needelman covers the Town of North Hempstead for Newsday. A Long Island native and University of Maryland graduate, his work has appeared in publications including The New York Times and The Washington Post.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Three days before Earth Day, about 200 residents gathered at Kings Point Park on Sunday\u00a0to protest the potential…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":202744,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[128,19467,9,24,63,129,131,130],"class_list":["post-202743","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-the-bronx","tag-bronx","tag-environment-and-nature","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-the-bronx","tag-the-bronx-headlines","tag-the-bronx-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202743","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=202743"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202743\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/202744"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=202743"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=202743"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=202743"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}