“He’s been dynamic for the whole 25 years,” said Lois Phillips, the group’s…
By Betsy Scheinbart
In 1974, Solomon Goodrich helped create Roy Wilkins Southern Queens Park, but this will be the last year he serves as its president since he plans to retire in December.
“He’s been dynamic for the whole 25 years,” said Lois Phillips, the group’s treasurer and a founding member who is also on the search committee to find a new president. “He’s been a wonderful president and he will be missed.”
Hugh Haywood, the coordinator of the Cisco Networking Academy at the Roy Wilkins Park Family Center, said Goodrich “has a tremendous legacy.”
Nobody believed that the St. Albans Naval Base could be transformed into a park. But Goodrich, with the help of Paul Gibson, Phillips and others, worked to turn the 54 acres of dilapidated, rat-infested barracks into a beautifully landscaped, community-managed park.
“Our first challenge was to convince people that this project could succeed,” said Goodrich, who was born on the island of Jamaica and currently lives in Brooklyn.
Goodrich, who turned 70 this week, became the first-paid staff member of the association, which was born out of the Queens Federation of Youth organization and is comprised of a dozen local institutions, including nearby community boards and colleges.
The park’s family center has a gym and offers recreational programs for children and 1,500 area seniors. The center also hosts educational programs for adults and youngsters, as well as after-school programs and a summer day camp for 1,000 kids.
The Black Spectrum Theatre Company, which often hosts school field trips, is adjacent to the family center.
Goodrich has a vision that the park, which contains acres of community vegetable gardens, will some day be owned by the community.
“My hope is that 25 years from now the community will own these 54 acres and develop a great community corporation which will make it a place of interest not only in the arts and academics, but also in economic development,” Goodrich said.
Goodrich is working with the association to develop the African-American Hall of Fame on Roy Wilkins Park grounds, a project that has been in the works for the past ten years.
The association intends to break ground on the hall of fame by the end of this year, although half the $20 million needed for the project is still outstanding. Goodrich intends to stay on with this project after his retirement.
Goodrich said the most important accomplishment he has made in his time with the park is not the establishment of a particular program but the creation of a sense of community.
“Southern Queens is an amorphous place — nobody really knows where it is,” Goodrich said, adding that South Jamaica is one of four struggling, black neighborhoods in New York City but not as well-know as Harlem, the South Bronx or Bedford Stuyvesant in Brooklyn.
“People know that St. Albans is the most affluent black community in the country,” but they do not know where it is, Goodrich said. “Roy Wilkins Park is defining southeast Queens.”
Goodrich grew up in a small village in Jamaica, walking two miles to school each way, barefoot until he was 12. His parents were banana farmers. He is a big fan of cricket and roots for the West Indies team.
He moved to the United States in the 1960s and worked for the civil rights organization Congress of Racial Equality known as CORE both in the United States and in 22 African countries.
He earned a master’s degree in business from Columbia University.
Goodrich has seven sister and a brother, two daughters, three sons and five grandchildren. His family is scattered across the globe, in Jamaica, England, Canada and the United States. He is divorced.
Goodrich said that part of the reason why he is retiring is that he feels he must write a novel and finish the autobiography he began in 1969, when his youngest son was only 6.
“I have to write a novel that will bring the world to tears,” Goodrich said.
He said that if he ruled the world, he would have only three laws for his subjects: learn how to swim, learn a second language and write two books, an autobiography and a novel.
Reach reporter Betsy Scheinbart by e-mail at Timesledgr@aol.com or call 229-0300 Ext. 138.
