Aug. 24, 2011 By Christian Murray
Elected officials held a ribbon cutting at Windmuller Park on Tuesday to showcase the $1.7m in improvements.
The improvements were primarily made to the one-acre sitting plaza, which is one section of the 3-acre park. In recent years, the other sections of the park have been revamped—including the running track and children’s playground.
The upgrades unveiled yesterday include a new staircase and step ramp to Woodside Ave., new benches, drinking fountains and nearly 12,000 trees, shrubs and groundcover plants. Many of the trees were planted to help guard against erosion on the hill. New fences and improvements to the drainage system were made.
“The renovations to Windmuller Park are a welcomed addition,” said councilman Jimmy Van Bramer in a press release. “The residents of Woodside now have a state-of-the-art play and recreation space.”
Van Bramer was joined by state senator Mike Gianaris and Community Board 2 chairman Joseph Conley—and members of the community.
“We are very glad that they finished this park,” said Catherine Volpe, a Berkeley Towers resident. “It looks really lovely.”
Windmuller Park is named after the prominent banker Louis Windmuller who built a mansion on the park site toward the end of the 19th Century. His children donated the land in 1936 to the city for use as a park.
Today, “it’s great to see kids from the community playing together here and taking advantage of all this park has to offer,” Gianaris said.
6 Comments
Barbara –
I just found that link via a little internet search, that is all – it came from Louis Windmuller’s great grandson’s blog –
It is chock full of information about old Queends, stuff I had no idea about – for those who want to know more, here is a link of all of his posts on Woodside:
http://secondat.blogspot.com/search/label/Woodside
All the best –
Raquel, name me a public park where kids don’t do stupid and illegal things.
Thanks so much for the piece on Windmuller Park.
A very special thank you to Deniz for sharing the history of Windmuller Park from a personal collection. Extraordinary!
Maybe you would share it with the Woodside Library. I am sure
it would be a great interest to many.
Thanks again
Isn’t this the park where kids like to set fires and do drugs? I have heard of people in the Berkeley complaining about them. I hope it is not true because it is lovely.
Here is a photo and a little bit about the Windmüller mansion:
http://secondat.blogspot.com/2011/06/hillside-manor.html
They really did do a fantastic job with the renovation of that section of the park. Now, if they would focus their attention on neighboring Doughboy Park and the big formerly grass lawn area that hasn’t been replanted in two years, we’d have a truly great neighborhood park.