Q. How did Ozone Park, Queens, get its name? One suggestion I heard is that it was the “O” zone as distinct from the “P” zone.
A. Ozone was no zone. The name sprang from the fancy of two 19th-century developers, Benjamin W. Hitchcock and Charles C. Denton, who bought farmland and created building lots after a railroad opened in 1880 from Long Island City to Howard Beach. They decided to call their development Ozone Park to promote the idea of cool, clean breezes blowing in from the Atlantic Ocean. Fresh air is one of the meanings of ozone.
6 years ago
