page_title: Flushing River
section_title: 20th century improvements
hierarchical_section_title: Flushing River / History / 20th century improvements
caption_attribution_description: English: Looking north along Meadow Lake in Flushing Meadow Park on November 29, 2009, with all major park infrastructures in sight, taken from the far Southern side.
context_page_description: The Flushing River, also known as Flushing Creek, is a waterway that flows northward through the borough of Queens in New York City, mostly within Flushing Meadows–Corona Park, emptying into the Flushing Bay and the East River. The river runs through a valley that may have been a larger riverbed before the last Ice Age, and it divides Queens into western and eastern halves. Until the 20th century, the Flushing Creek was fed by three tributaries: Mill Creek and Kissena Creek on the eastern bank, and Horse Brook on the western bank.
  In the 18th and 19th centuries, it divided the towns of Flushing on its right bank, to the east, and Newtown on its left bank, to the west. Several bridges were built across the Flushing River in the 19th and 20th centuries. Prior to the 1939 New York World's Fair, the southern portion of the river was expanded into the Meadow and Willow Lakes. A part of the Flushing River was buried prior to the 1964 New York World's Fair. Following accumulations of pollution in the 20th century, cleanup of the Flushing River started in the 1970s, though some portions of the river have yet to be restored.
context_section_description: Around 1907, contractor Michael Degnon purchased large tracts of marsh near Flushing Creek. At the time, the land was considered "all but worthless", as an archaeological assessment later described the land. Degnon envisioned using the site to create a large industrial port around Flushing Bay, similar to a terminal he developed in Long Island City. By 1911, Degnon had created a plan along with the United States Department of War and the Queens Topographical Bureau. The plan envisioned widening Flushing River and creating docks for ships, with numerous factories and freight facilities. The Rivers and Harbors Act of 1913 appropriated funding for deepening the channel through Flushing Bay into Flushing River. The next year, surveys were made for the construction of a 5.4-mile (8.7 km) canal to connect Flushing River and Newtown Creek, plans for which dated back at least a century. To create the port, Degnon proceeded to fill the Flushing River wetlands using household coal refuse ashes and street sweepings from Brooklyn. The northern end of the site was filled via dredging. The filling for the north meadow was complete in 1916, but the prospect of creating a port was halted in 1917 by material restrictions caused by World War I, and a lack of federal support for the project. Dumping of ash into the meadows continued, however, fueled by the increased use of garbage incinerators in the city. The pollution was chronicled by F. Scott Fitzgerald in The Great Gatsby.
  In 1930, New York City parks commissioner Robert Moses released plans for numerous parks and highways in the city, including a Flushing River Park. Five years later, Flushing Meadows was selected as the site for the 1939 World's Fair. Work on the World's Fair site began the next year. The project primarily involved leveling the ash mounds, with the leftover material used to fill other areas of the meadow. Two parts of the river were excavated to create Meadow and Willow Lake, while much of the rest of the Flushing River was diverted into underground culverts. The Tidal Gate Bridge was built at the park's northern end to prevent tidal flow from flooding the lakes. In addition to recreation, the lakes would serve as repositories for excess storm runoff. By then, Horse Brook had already been covered over, while Kissena Creek was in the process of being covered over. Dammed and reduced in size, the Flushing River became navigable only north of Roosevelt Avenue. At its southern end, the Jamaica subway yard reduced some of the flow coming from the headwaters. The central portion of the Flushing River was repurposed as part of the World's Fair's Court of States.
  For the 1964 New York World's Fair, the creek's middle section was filled in for parkland. Flowing out of Meadow Lake, the creek was reduced to a canal beneath the Van Wyck Expressway, narrowing into pipes going into the Fountain of the Planets, a circular pool used for fountain displays. From there, the pipes took the water toward the tidal bridge, reemerging as a creek.
caption: Meadow Lake, created in the 1930s by expanding Flushing River
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