Gwen Ifill Park

Gwen Ifill (1955-2016) was a trailblazing journalist who covered the White House, Congress and national election campaigns. She was the first Black woman to anchor a national TV public affairs show, Washington Week. Though she held positions with The Washington Post, The New York Times and NBC, she spent most of her career at PBS. She worked at PBS NewsHour for 17 years, and along with Judy Woodruff, was on the first all-woman anchor team on network nightly news.

Ifill was born in Jamaica, Queens, and lived in several different cities throughout New England, Pennsylvania and New York, due to her father’s work as a minister. She attended Simmons College in Boston and majored in communications. Her first journalism experience was as an intern at the Boston Herald newspaper in her senior year of college, and she subsequently began working at the newspaper full-time in 1977. Until her untimely death from cancer at the age of 61, Ifill had a prolific career as a journalist for more than 30 years.

The former Railroad Park was renamed Gwen Ifill Park on June 16, 2021.

Sources:

Joshua Barajas, "New York City renames parks for Gwen Ifill and other prominent Black Americans,"_ PBS NewsHour_, June 17, 2021, https://www.pbs.org/newshour/arts/new-york-city-renames-parks-for-gwen-ifill-and-other-prominent-black-americans 

Ryan Songalia, "Parks in Queens Renamed in Honor of Famous African Americans – Including Gwen Ifill and Malcolm X," Sunnyside Post, June 17, 2021, https://sunnysidepost.com/parks-in-queens-renamed-in-honor-of-famous-african-americans-including-gwen-ifill-and-malcolm-x 

Gwen Ifill, The HistoryMakers, https://www.thehistorymakers.org/biography/gwen-ifill-6 

Sam Roberts, "Gwen Ifill, Political Reporter and Co-Anchor of ‘PBS NewsHour,’ Dies at 61," The New York Times, November 14, 2016, https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/14/business/media/gwen-ifill-dies.html 

Wikidata contributors, “Q49547622”, Wikidata, accessed December 7, 2023, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q49547622

Wikidata contributors, “Q5623430”, Wikidata, accessed December 7, 2023, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q5623430

“178102674,” OpenStreetMap, accessed December 7, 2023, https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/178102674#map=17/40.67791/-73.76840