General Information

Gantry Plaza State Park, located by the East River, in the borough of Queens, offers picnic tables, a playground, fishing pier, playing fields and a waterfront promenade with a view of United Nations Headquarters and the midtown Manhattan skyline, providing an excellent vantage point for photographers.

Additional Information

The park is currently being developed in stages by the Queens West Development Corporation. The original section of Gantry Plaza State Park was designed by Thomas Balsley with Lee Weintraub, both New York City landscape architects, and Richard Sullivan, an architect. When complete, the Gantry Plaza State Park is expected to be 16 hectares in size.

History: Highlights

The 4,0 hectare park first opened in May 1998 and was expanded in July 2009. The southern part of the park is a former dock facility and includes restored transfer bridges, built in 1925 to load and unload rail car floats that served industries on Long Island. The northern portion of Gantry Plaza State Park was a former Pepsi bottling plant.

Film appearances: Highlights

Gantry Plaza State Park, and high neon Pepsi-Cola sign in particular was featured in two films: Munich and The Interpreter. Munich took advantage of this site in its final scene, shot in 2005. The same location was used in The Interpreter- in the final scene Sean Penn’s character is sitting on a fence by Gantry Park.