Willets Point and Corona Park
Willets Point, together with Corona Park to the north of it, is located at the center of Queens, where different kinds of industries and communities meet. However, due to the complicated site conditions resulting from heavy infrastructure, inaccessible open spaces and fragmentary developed programs, Willets Point and Corona Park have become a dead-end for pedestrian flow, vehicles, and open space.
We have discovered the following elements to be the primary causes of the dysfunctional areas. Firstly, the site is segregated by heavy infrastructures including the number 7 subway line, Van Wyck Expressway, Grand Central Parkway, Long Island Railway and their junctions. Secondly, open space within the site lacks program diversity of different scales. Thirdly, scattered public facilities are not operated as an access network to serve communities of different levels such as local, borough, regional and national. Fourthly, water resources cannot be used properly to serve the recreational function because of the following reasons: a) contamination caused by industries around the estuarine area; b) the previous reclamation that damages the drainage system; c) inaccessible water edge blocked by heavy infrastructure.