Family Fun Day "Aloha to Summer" at Phil Rizzuto Park on June 26th

Click on image to enlarge

When: June 26th

Time: 2pm - 6pm

Where: Phil "Scooter" Rizzuto Park

125th Street and Atlantic Avenue

Family Fun Day event is sponsored by NYC Council Member Ruben Wills

Family Fun Day at Phil Rizzuto Park Sponsored by City CouncilmanThomas White - June 27th

Click on image to enlarge...

Sikhs Back Renaming of a Queens Park for Rizzuto by John Sullivan - City Room - Metro - New York Times Blog

Read original...

Holy Cow…! I think it’s a wonderful thing that Scooter Rizzuto has Smoky Oval Park named after him…With the LIRR Morris Park train repair yard long gone from Atlantic Avenue, the name “Smoky Oval” simply no longer held any significance to the park…It’s a fitting tribute to an individual who many of us let into our homes while broadcasting Yankees baseball games for years and years, I grew up listening to Phil on the radio and television…I’m glad the old huckleberry from Richmond Hill High School will live on in our community in spirit…

If people in Queens have their way, one of the more peculiar names on the roster of city parks will soon be history. Smokey Oval Park, a cluster of ball fields and playgrounds in Richmond Hill, gets its name from deposits of soot and ash that passing trains used to dump on the area, according to the Parks Department. The ash heaps are long gone, but the name has lived on to baffle visitors to the neighborhood.

Now, Rory I. Lancman, the state assemblyman who represents the area, wants to change the park’s name to honor one of Richmond Hill’s most famous sons, Yankee great Phil Rizzuto. Mr. Rizzuto, who died in August, grew up in nearby Glendale but played high school baseball in Richmond Hill, which gives the neighborhood sufficient reason to honor the hall of famer. (There was some support for another former resident, Jack Kerouac, but Mr. Lancman said the beat writer could not compete with the shortstop.)

“There are certain things about Phil Rizzuto that makes it especially appropriate,” Mr. Lancman, following a news conference at the site this morning. “He embodied the spunk and decency of New Yorkers.”

Mr. Lancman is also bowing to the will of a large group of his constituents. Two of the city’s largest Sikh temples are located near the park, he said, and smoking is banned by the Sikh religion. He said delegates from the community approached him and asked to change the name.

“It sounds like a place for smoking and drinking and things like that,” said Raghbir Singh, one of the founders of one of the temples, the Makhan Shah Labana, and chairman of the 25th District’s Democratic club. “When we print up fliers, we have to say we are having an activity in nearby Smokey Park.”

Mr. Lancman said Community Board 9 has already unanimously endorsed switching the park’s name. This morning’s news conference, he said, was intended to persuade (“I don’t like to say pressure”) the Parks Department into confirming the switch.

The department responded with a statement saying that while no one has officially applied for a name change, it “would welcome the opportunity to review a proposal.”

Queens Park Renamed for Phil Rizzuto - AP via NY Daily News

Read original...

A Queens park will now be known as the Phil Rizzuto Park, in honor of the Yankees shortstop who died last year.

Smokey Oval Park in Richmond Hill, Queens, was officially renamed after Rizzuto on Friday.

Park officials say “The Scooter” grew up in nearby Glendale, Queens, and played high school baseball in Richmond Hill.

He died last August at the age of 89.

Smokey Oval in Queens Is Renamed for Rizzuto by Sewall Chan - City Room - Metro - New York Times Blog

Read original...

Phil Rizzuto in 1949. (Photo: Bettman, via Reuters)

Smokey Oval Park, a 4.4-acre cluster of ballfields and playgrounds in Richmond Hall, Queens, was formally rechristened Friday morning for Phil Rizzuto, the Yankee great who died in August.

The park had been informally known as Smokey Oval since it was acquired by the city in March 1938. That name — which referred to the soot and ash that once emanated from a nearby Long Island Rail Road terminus — became official in 1987. The name is also inspired by an oval-shaped mound at the front of the park.

As City Room reported last October, the name change also had the support of the sizable Sikh community in the area. Some Sikh leaders believed the original name evoked activities like smoking and drinking, which are prohibited by their faith.

The park is near the intersection of 126th Street and 94th Avenue, adjacent to Atlantic Avenue. (A 40-foot strip of the playground was used to widen the avenue in 1944, according to the Parks Department.)

Assemblyman Rory I. Lancman, a Queens Democrat who sponsored the renaming, attended a ceremony to mark the occasion, joined by community officials and Dorothy Lewandowski, the Queens borough commissioner for the Parks and Recreation Department.

Rizzuto grew up in nearby Glendale but played baseball in Richmond Hill as a high school student. Famous residents of Richmond Hill have included Jack Kerouac, Jacob A. Riis and the Marx Brothers.