Gantry Plaza State Park is a 12acre state park on the East River in the Hunters Point section of Long Island City, in the New York City borough of Queens. The park is located in a former dockyard and manufacturing district, and includes remnants of facilities from the area's past.HistoryThe southern portion of the park is a former dock facility and includes restored "contained apron" transfer bridges of the James B. French patent. These were built in 1925 to load and unload rail car floats that served industries on Long Island via the Long Island Rail Road tracks that used to run along 48th Avenue (now part of Hunter's Point Park). The northern portion of Gantry Plaza State Park was part of a former Pepsi bottling plant that closed in 1999.Constructed in 1936 by the Artkraft Strauss Sign Corporation, the 120ft long and 60ft high cursive, ruby-colored, neon-on-metal Pepsi-Cola sign was located on top of the bottling plant before it was dismantled and reassembled into a permanent location within the park in 2009.The park first opened in May 1998 and was expanded in July 2009. The park is 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. Stage 2, the new 6acre section of the park, was designed by New York City landscape architecture firm Abel Bainnson Butz and the first phase of Stage 2 opened to the public in July 2009. When complete, Gantry Plaza State Park is expected to total 40acre in size.
