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Anthony Sanchez doesn't understand why, for the past few years, sections of his nearby park have been cluttered with boards and fences.
For Sanchez, who has made weekly bike trips through Flushing Meadows Corona Park since he moved to Queens five years ago, the fields were just fine before construction crews began to close entrances and fence off sections of park to plant flowers and restore buildings. The only improvement I saw was that they knocked down a bunch of trees, the 32-year-old Flushing resident said, critiquing recent renovations to the borough's most expansive stretch of green.
Queens officials have heard similar complaints, but they are the lengthy and costly renovations will revive a park that had received only minimal attention since the end of the 1964 World's Fair.
It's one of the most heavily used parks in the city, and it wasn't getting any money, said deputy borough president Peter Magnani.
Sections of park had been left to decay, and structures built for the two World's Fairs were showing signs of age.
But in 1987, Queens borough officials launched an aggressive campaign to spruce up a park that's used by about 8 million people a year. More than $45 million has been spent so far, renovating such structures as the New York Hall of Science, the Queens Theatre in the Park, the Queens Zoo and the Unisphere. And, in a matter of weeks, the Queens Museum of Art will host a grand reopening after a three-year, $15-million facelift.
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