Greenpoint, October, 2015

Friday, August 26, 2011

Winfield Plaza, Redux or Redoubt?

Winfield Plaza (at 69th St & Woodside Ave.)
Another mystery solved! It has been pointed out that my post about Winfield Plaza and the absent Victorious America statue (aka Winfield War Memorial) was rife with error. No surprise there, but in this case the mistakes were not all my own making. To wit, if you followed the directions and map on the Parks Department's site to find Victorious America (or where she should be), you would wind up at 69th Street and Woodside Avenue, and the puzzlingly lower-cased "Bqe." And yes, you would find a Winfield Plaza there, and some Latino men waiting for construction jobs (who are understandably wary of having their pictures taken). What you wouldn't find are any signs of Victorious America.

65th Place & Mount Laurel Blvd
That's because Vicky's home is at 65th Place and Mount Laurel Boulevard (right), about four blocks away, also perilously close to the BQE. (In fairness, this info is on the Park's Department's site, but buried six paragraphs down.) As near as I can tell, this wee park is called "Victorious America at Winfield Plaza." Which is the real Winfield Plaza? Can there be more than one? Is one an exclave of the other? These are questions I will leave to WHAP's (Winfield Heights Alliance for Preservation) R&D Division.

As ever, Flann O'Brien put it best: "What way are we going? ... Or what direction are we heading for or are we on the way back from somewhere else?" (The Third Policeman)

1 comment:

  1. Mr. Y.

    WHAP thanks you for the publicity and the enquiry into our somewhat muddled history. 65th Place, for the record, was the main street of Winfield and before the hilarious and mystical Queens numbering system was called Hyatt Avenue. Brick and limestone piers bearing that name still exist just beyond Vicky's sad pedestal. I would refer you to our communications committee for further information, but they communicate only through interpretive dance in front of the flagship building of WH (Fawn Hall, formerly the Oxford Apartments) Morning is the best time to see them.

    Cheers

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