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Community Corner

The Ash Wastelands of Flushing Meadows

A brief look at the legacy of Tammany Hall crony Fishhook McCarthy.

It's difficult to imagine Flushing Meadow Park as the “fantastic farm where ashes grow like wheat into ridges,” that F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote about in the 'Great Gatsby.'

And history has long since forgotten the name of Fishhooks McCarthy.

Still, there are some within the local historical community who proudly remember the ‘Valley Of Ashes,’ which use to encompass all of Flushing Meadow Park.

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"The whole thing is one of the most widely forgotten scandals in New York City history, actually,” said Louise Weinberg, curator of the recently closed 'Future Perfect Exhibition,' at the Queens Museum of Art.

A scandal, which Weinberg explained saw the bucolic playground of Flushing Meadows transformed into a mountainous mass of soot and ashes.

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“In 1910 Fishhooks McCarthy, who was a Tammany Hall crony, bought the land around Flushing Meadows for a ridiculous sum of money, then formed the Brooklyn Ash Removal Company and started hauling trash from Brooklyn to Queens,” she said.

Over the next 25 years, McCarthy and company would bring garbage from all over the city to the Corona Dump and burn it, until eventually all that was left behind were mountains of ash, which were up to 100 feet tall.

"He would literally bring 100 rail cars here everyday, filled with dead horses that died on city street, household refuse, ash from coal burning stoves, bed springs, and baby carriages," she said.

That was until 1935, when the powerhouse triumvirate of Grover Whalen, Fiorello La Guardia and Robert Moses teamed up to restore the area for the 1939 Worlds Fair.

“The whole undertaking was phenomenal, and one that no one believed could be done," Weinberg said.

It would take teams of men and dump trucks, working in shifts 24 hours a day, one full year, to hall away tons of debris.

"Robert Moses would later describe the area as having rats as big as small horses that you could put saddles on and ride them," she said.

Then on April 30, 1939, President Roosevelt welcomed the world into to the 'Court of Peace,' at the official opening of the 1939 World's Fair.

"So in the end, the '39 World's Fair wasn't just a celebration of the scientific discoveries of man, but a testament to the vision of Whalen, La Guardia and Moses," Weinberg said.

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