Opinion: New York City Parks finds a new way to push SQPA out of Roy Wilkins Park

Roy Wilkins Park. Photo by Tdorante10/Wikimedia Commons

By James Johnson

For more than 50 years, the Southern Queens Park Association has been the backbone of Roy Wilkins Park.

Since 1973, SQPA has provided afterschool programming and critical community services to families across Southeast Queens. It is more than a nonprofit – it is a trusted institution built by and for the community.

Today, that institution is being pushed aside.

New York City is constructing a $92 million, state-of-the-art facility in Roy Wilkins Park complete with a gym, pool, indoor track, and modern community space. These are long-overdue investments that our community deserves.

But the reality behind this investment tells a different story.

SQPA, the very organization that sustained this park through decades of neglect, will not have access to this new facility.

Originally, New York City Parks indicated that SQPA would be included. That promise has not been kept.

At this time last year, community leaders, stakeholders, and advocates were raising concerns, asking questions, and engaging in good faith about SQPA’s role in the future of Roy Wilkins Park. Several town halls were organized to get answers and ensure transparency.

The main question was simple: Why are two facilities being built in the same park?

There was a clear expectation that SQPA would be included, not sidelined.

Those concerns were not addressed. Instead, SQPA is now being forced to compete in the very park it has maintained for generations.

Meanwhile, the Roy Wilkins Recreation Center, where SQPA currently operates, has suffered from decades of neglect. The heat fails. The roof leaks. The infrastructure is outdated. Year after year, the city allowed these conditions to persist.

Now, families are being presented with a false choice: Send your children to a brand-new, $92 million facility, or continue using an aging building that has been allowed to deteriorate.

That is not choice. That is displacement.

James Johnson is the chair of the SQPA Advisory Council. Photo via Johnson

We have seen this model before. It mirrors what has happened in education, where charter schools are placed alongside Department of Education schools with new resources flowing to one, while the other is left to struggle. The result is not competition. It is inequity.

SQPA should not be competing in a park it has maintained since 1973. You do not reward decades of service by sidelining the very institution that carried the community when resources were scarce.

And SQPA’s role is not interchangeable.It represents one of the few Black-managed park institutions in New York City. It has built trust across generations. It understands the needs of Southeast Queens because it is rooted in Southeast Queens.

You cannot replicate that with a new building.

If anything, this moment should be an opportunity to invest in SQPA to strengthen its programming, expand its reach, and integrate it into the future of Roy Wilkins Park.

Instead, we are witnessing the opposite. A new facility is being built, but the foundation is being ignored.

This is not just about access to a building. It is about fairness. It is about honoring legacy. It is about ensuring that long-standing community institutions are not displaced in the name of progress.

Now the question is simple: Will Mayor Zohran Mamdani stand with the community that sustained Roy Wilkins Park for generations or allow it to be pushed aside?

James Johnson is the chair of the SQPA Advisory Council.