Clove Lakes Park is a

public park An urban park or metropolitan park, also known as a municipal park (North America) or a public park, public open space, or municipal gardens ( UK), is a park in cities and other incorporated places that offer recreation and green space to r ...

in the Sunnyside neighborhood of Staten Island in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

. Clove Lakes Park has a rich natural history with valuable ecological assets and a few remnants of the past. Chief among them are the park's lakes and ponds, outcroppings of

serpentine rock Serpentinite is a rock composed predominantly of one or more serpentine group minerals, the name originating from the similarity of the texture of the rock to that of the skin of a snake. Serpentinite has been called ''serpentine'' or ''ser ...

s, and Staten Island's largest living thing, a

tulip tree ''Liriodendron'' () is a genus of two species of characteristically large trees, deciduous over most of their populations, in the magnolia family (Magnoliaceae). These trees are widely known by the common name tulip tree or tuliptree for their ...

. Clove Lakes Park is home to many species of indigenous wildlife. Visitors can see fish such as black crappie,

brown bullhead The brown bullhead (''Ameiurus nebulosus'') is a fish of the family Ictaluridae that is widely distributed in North America. It is a species of bullhead catfish and is similar to the black bullhead (''Ameiurus melas'') and yellow bullhead (''Am ...

, bluegill,

emerald shiner The emerald shiner (''Notropis atherinoides'') is one of hundreds of small, silvery, slender fish species known as shiners. The identifying characteristic of the emerald shiner is the silvery emerald color on its sides. It can grow to 3.5 ...

pumpkinseed The pumpkinseed (''Lepomis gibbosus''), also referred to as pond perch, common sunfish, punkie, sunfish, sunny, and kivver, is a small/medium-sized North American freshwater fish of the genus ''Lepomis'' (true sunfishes), from family Centrarchi ...

largemouth bass The largemouth bass (''Micropterus salmoides'') is a carnivorous freshwater gamefish in the Centrarchidae ( sunfish) family, a species of black bass native to the eastern and central United States, southeastern Canada and northern Mexico, bu ...

, and carp; birds such as

red-tailed hawk The red-tailed hawk (''Buteo jamaicensis'') is a bird of prey that breeds throughout most of North America, from the interior of Alaska and northern Canada to as far south as Panama and the West Indies. It is one of the most common members wit ...

, belted kingfisher,

double-crested cormorant The double-crested cormorant (''Nannopterum auritum'') is a member of the cormorant family of water birds. It is found near rivers and lakes, and in coastal areas, and is widely distributed across North America, from the Aleutian Islands in Al ...

red-winged blackbird The red-winged blackbird (''Agelaius phoeniceus'') is a passerine bird of the family Icteridae found in most of North America and much of Central America. It breeds from Alaska and Newfoundland south to Florida, the Gulf of Mexico, Mexico, and G ...

, Canada goose, heron,

egret Egrets ( ) are herons, generally long-legged wading birds, that have white or buff plumage, developing fine plumes (usually milky white) during the breeding season. Egrets are not a biologically distinct group from herons and have the same build ...

and mallard; as well as reptiles and amphibians, like the common snapping turtle,

eastern painted turtle The painted turtle (''Chrysemys picta'') is the most widespread native turtle of North America. It lives in slow-moving fresh waters, from southern Canada to northern Mexico, and from the Atlantic to the Pacific. They have been shown to prefer l ...

red-eared slider The red-eared slider or red-eared terrapin (''Trachemys scripta elegans'') is a subspecies of the pond slider (''Trachemys scripta''), a semiaquatic turtle belonging to the family Emydidae. It is the most popular pet turtle in the United States, ...

, and occasionally even the

red-backed salamander The red-backed salamander (''Plethodon cinereus'') is a small, hardy woodland salamander species in the family Plethodontidae. It is also known as the redback salamander, eastern red-backed salamander,Integrated Taxonomic Information System nte ...

. The park is also home to mammals such as

eastern gray squirrel The eastern gray squirrel (''Sciurus carolinensis''), also known, particularly outside of North America, as simply the grey squirrel, is a tree squirrel in the genus ''Sciurus''. It is native to eastern North America, where it is the most prodi ...

, muskrat,

eastern cottontail The eastern cottontail (''Sylvilagus floridanus'') is a New World cottontail rabbit, a member of the family Leporidae. It is the most common rabbit species in North America. Distribution The eastern cottontail can be found in meadows and shrubb ...

, and

eastern chipmunk The eastern chipmunk (''Tamias striatus'') is a chipmunk species found in eastern North America. It is the only living member of the chipmunk genus ''Tamias''. Etymology The name "chipmunk" comes from the Ojibwe word ''ajidamoo'' (or possibl ...

. The park is known for its cozy picnic accommodations and boating. Besides strolling down trails and paddling on its bodies of water, visitors can experience the park as a more modern recreation zone. Several baseball diamonds, a

soccer field A football pitch (also known as soccer field) is the playing surface for the game of association football. Its dimensions and markings are defined by Law 1 of the Laws of the Game, "The Field of Play". The pitch is typically made of natural t ...

basketball court In basketball, the basketball court is the playing surface, consisting of a rectangular floor, with baskets at each end. Indoor basketball courts are almost always made of polished wood, usually maple, with -high rims on each basket. Outdoor sur ...

, playgrounds, and a football field dot the park's landscape. The Staten Island World War II Veteran's Memorial Ice Skating Rink is an outdoor rink located in what could be called the "active" part of the park, close to its other fields and courts. The park also contains a restaurant overlooking Clove Lake, and the

borough A borough is an administrative division in various English-speaking countries. In principle, the term ''borough'' designates a self-governing walled town, although in practice, official use of the term varies widely. History In the Middle A ...

headquarters of the city's Department of Parks and Recreation. The park consists of three lakes: the main one is Clove Lake, which runs off to Martling Lake, and then to Brooks Lake. The Staten Island Expressway, part of

Interstate 278 Interstate 278 (I-278) is an auxiliary Interstate Highway in New Jersey and New York in the United States. The road runs from US Route 1/9 (US 1/9) in Linden, New Jersey, northeast to the Bruckner Interchange in the New Yor ...

, built in 1964, goes through a cleft just south of the park, connecting the then newly-built

Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge The Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge ( ) is a suspension bridge connecting the New York City boroughs of Staten Island and Brooklyn. It spans the Narrows, a body of water linking the relatively enclosed New York Harbor with Lower New York Bay and t ...

in the east with the

Goethals Bridge The Goethals Bridge () is the name of a pair of cable-stayed bridge spans connecting Elizabeth, New Jersey, to Staten Island, New York, in the United States. The spans cross a strait known as Arthur Kill, and replaced a cantilever bridge span b ...

in the west. When first proposed, the expressway was to be named the Clove Lake Expressway.

References

External links

* , NYC Parks
Park history
NYC Parks {{New York City waterways Parks in Staten Island Robert Moses projects Urban public parks Lakes of Staten Island Individual trees in New York City Castleton Corners, Staten Island