Kissena Creek (also Mill Creek or Ireland Mill Creek) is a buried stream located in the neighborhoods of Flushing, Fresh Meadows, Hillcrest, and Kew Gardens Hills in the New York City borough of Queens. Kissena Creek originates in a now-filled swamp within Kew Gardens Hills and Pomonok in central Queens, flowing east to Hillcrest. The creek then travels mostly north and west, largely flowing beneath Kissena Park Golf Course, Kissena Park, Kissena Corridor Park, and Queens Botanical Garden, before merging with the Flushing River in Flushing Meadows–Corona Park.
The name "Kissena" comes from the Chippewa language term for "it is cold", "cold place", or "cool water". Much of the creek was covered or diverted into sewers in the 20th century, and the only extant above-ground portion of the creek is Kissena Lake in Kissena Park.
Headwaters
The creek, also known historically as Mill Creek or Ireland Mill Creek, begins at what was formerly a swamp in the modern Kew Gardens Hills and Pomonok areas. The swamp was variously known as "Peat Bog Swamp", "Old Crow Swamp", "Doughty's Swamp", and "Gutman's Swamp". The swamp was bound by Vleigh Place near Main Street to its west, and Kissena Boulevard and Parsons Boulevard to the east. When Parsons and Kissena Boulevards were laid out as the combined "Jamaica and Flushing Road", the route curved around the north edge of the swamp. The curve later became known as "Dead Man's Bend", due to the frequent accidents that would appear there, until a bypass was made by extending Kissena Boulevard southeast to Parsons Boulevard. The original alignment between Kissena and Parsons Boulevards remains as the two-block Aguilar Avenue.
In the late 19th century, the swamp served as a source for peat, a fossil fuel related to coal that forms from decayed plant matter. As Kew Gardens Hills gradually developed, the swamp shrunk in size with the street grid resting on top of it. The swamp was completely drained by 1918, except for a small section under a barn, whose owner had bought the barn from the city government and moved it to the swamp's "easement area". The last remaining section of the swamp, covering , remained undeveloped through the end of the 20th century. Lander College for Men was built on the site in 2000, while Opal Apartments was developed in 2004.
Fresh Meadows
Past the swamp, the creek travels east parallel to 72nd Avenue. It turns north in modern Fresh Meadows, at the site of Francis Lewis High School, then travels parallel to today's Utopia Parkway to the modern Kissena Park Golf Course, just south of Flushing Cemetery. The creek runs under Fresh Meadow Lane, which forms the Kissena Park Golf Course's eastern border, and then turns westward underneath the golf course's northern border.
A tributary flowed northward from a kettle pond in present-day Utopia Playground and merged with the main creek at Utopia Parkway. The pond was located at the junction of Fresh Meadow Lane and 73rd Avenue, which was known as Black Stump Road. This road took its name from a local landmark along current Fresh Meadows Lane: the remnants of a large tree that had burned after being struck by lightning, and that was known as the "Black Stump". The kettle pond was infilled in 1941.
Kissena Park
The creek then turns west and flows into Kissena Lake. Located at the northwestern corner of Kissena Park, Kissena Lake is fed by the creek and was also fed by a smaller stream from the north that has since been buried with a playground built on top. In its center is a bird sanctuary isle constructed following the lake's most recent restoration in 2003. The name of the lake, park, and creek comes from the Chippewa language meaning "it is cold", "cold place", or "cool water".
The site of Flushing Meadows–Corona Park, slightly west of Kissena Park, was originally part of the ancestral path of the Hudson River, and the present-day Kissena Lake was located on the eastern shore of the river. A glacier covered much of Long Island, where Queens is located, and formed a terminal moraine through the center of the island. When the glacier receded, it created several recesses in the land; some of these recesses, such as Kissena Lake, were filled with water. The lake was used as an ice skating and ice harvesting site for much of the 19th century. Its use as a recreational site led the city to purchase land around it for a park in 1906. The glaciation also created a natural source of well water for the area.