By Bill Parry
Sunnyside will honor its Vietnam War dead with a new memorial in a playground named for a Congressional Medal of Honor recipient.
Several veterans were at a ground-breaking last Thursday, at Lance Corporal Thomas P. Noonan Jr. Playground, which is undergoing a $2 million renovation.
New granite slabs will surround a permanent flagpole engraved to remember Noonan and four others from the neighborhood who were killed in action.
Noonan was a U.S. Marine rifleman killed while rescuing wounded soldiers in 1969.
“The children proposed the monument for him,” City Councilman Jimmy Van Bramer (D-Sunnyside) said. “They knew his name but not his story. There will be biographies of him as well as the others from this community that made the ultimate sacrifice.”
Vietnam War veteran Mark Wilensky knew Noonan and grew up with two of the four who will be honored.
“There was Thomas John Riley on 43rd and Donny Breuer from 41st Street. I used to play with him over at PS 199. His family has been waiting for this honor for 40 years,” he said.
Edward Cochran and James Owens will also be honored.
“I’d also like to have Joe Leyden included even though he wasn’t killed in action,” Community Board 2 Chairman Joe Conley said. “He was in the Air Force during the war years and he should be remembered for his service to the country and Sunnyside.”
The memorial and the park renovation might not have happened had it not been for the students at PS 199 playing a central role, beginning with Career Day in 2010.
“I met a student there named Alicia Quan, who suggested we clean up the park,” Van Bramer said. “It was during that cleanup that we noticed the need for improvement.”
Van Bramer and the city Parks Department began planning the makeover the following year.
The playground’s complete renovation will include a new spray shower, separate play areas for toddlers and older children, new trees and shrubbery, a newly constructed entrance and fencing to keep the children from wandering into traffic on Greenpoint Avenue and 43rd Street.
Dorothy Lewandowski, Queens Parks commissioner, announced that the agency in charge of the renovation has raised additional funding to resurface the basketball and handball courts as well as bicycle racks.
“The playground will reopen in time for next summer,” she said. “We would have liked to start the renovation earlier, but the winter was too severe that we couldn’t do a thing. We did not want to ruin two summers by starting later.”
There were no complaints from the dozens of PS 199 students who were present at the ground-breaking, Many of their ideas have been incorporated into the new plan for the Noonan Playground.
Alicia Quan, now a student at IS 125 in Sunnyside, said, “It’s a great opportunity to play a role in the new park and everyone is excited about it.”
Van Bramer, who secured the $2 million in capital funding for the renovation, looked at Quan and said, “I’m just grateful she’s only 13 and can’t run against me for another five years.”
Reach reporter Bill Parry by e-mail at bparry@cnglocal.com or by phone at 718-260-4538.
