Goodhue Park Allison Park Pond

This is a newly acquired park called Goodhue.

This small pond has panfish and suckers.

A short hike away is Allison Park Pond.  Goodhue and Allison share hiking trails.

Allison Pond has carp

Parks has acquired 15 acres of Goodhue Park, thanks to a generous allocation of $5.6 million from Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and $1.5 million allocated by the City Council. Parks has been working since 2006 to acquire 38 acres of this property, owned by the Children’s Aid Society, to create a new public park for the North Shore of Staten Island. The property is located in the Randall Manor community and is comprised of 26 acres of woodlands, with the balance consisting of a meadow, stream, pond, open field area, indoor gymnasium, and 11 buildings which are planned to be used for recreational programming and maintenance and operations purposes. The new park is situated between Allison Pond Park and Jones Woods.

 Allison Pond, adjacent to the Sailors’ Snug Harbor Cemetery, once provided part of the asylum’s water supply. When a borough-wide municipal water system was implemented in 1939, the institution had no functional use for the pond. The trustees of the property deeded the pond site as a gift to the City, which transferred it to Parks in 1943. Since that time, the local community has used the pond and brook for fishing and strolling its banks.

A stone pedestrian bridge spanning the mouth of the pond adds interest to the landscape, as do the many mature trees and grasses. The park was renovated in 1990. New additions to the site included tree guards, new fencing, and railings. Boulders were placed around the pond and several new trees and flowers of many species were planted, including red maples (Acer rubrum), American beeches (Fagus grandifolia), tulip trees (Liriodendron tulipifera), swamp white oaks (Quercus bicolor), downy shadblows (Amelancier arborea), sweet bay magnolias (Magnolia grandiflora), witch hazel (Hamamelis virginiana), blackhaw viburnum (Viburnum), pink summer sweet (Clethra), northern bayberry (Myrica), Redosier dogwood (Cornus), swamp azalea (Rhododendron), mountain laurel (Laurus), various ferns (Osmundaceae), including columbines (Aquilegia), dwarf bleeding hearts (Dicentra), sensitive (Fabaceae), Solomon’s seal (Polygonatum), and marsh marigolds (Caltha palustris).