by NICHOLAS HIRSHON
The city Police and Fire departments are investigating an early-morning arson that damaged equipment at a Queens playground last week, officials said. Firefighters responding to a 911 call early Tuesday morning extinguished a fire at the Underhill Playground in Kissena Corridor Park, where children often come to play, Queens Borough Parks Commissioner Dorothy Lewandowski said. Fire Marshall Raymond Ott later determined that the fire had been set intentionally with the use of accelerants, spurring the Fire Department and officers from the 111th Precinct to look into the incident, Lewandowski said. "It's very sad that [the arson] now requires us to close off a section of the park that is used by children," she said. The Fire and Police department investigations were announced last Friday during a news conference called by Lewandowski, City Councilman John Liu (D-Flushing), Community Board 11 Chairman Jerry Iannece and Community Board 11 District Manager Susan Seinfeld. "This is an atrocious act, and the perpetrators have to be caught and punished as much as the law allows," said Liu. The playground, on 188th St. between Underhill and Peck Aves., was opened in June 1953, and renovated in 1997 with $764,000 in City Council funding. Improvements included the creation of three play areas, and the installation of decorative fencing and safety surfacing, three stone horses as play features, a spray shower and a reconstructed flagpole with a yardarm. "It's an active location where kids can recreate," Lewandowski said. But although the playground equipment was made with fire-retardant plastic materials, the blaze still caused enough damage to force the city Parks Department to temporarily close off the area. The playground will reopen when conditions are deemed safe for the children, officials said. "In that stretch of the Kissena Corridor West... this is the only neighborhood playground," Lewandowski said. "A piece of valuable equipment has been taken away from [the children]." The new design was based on the Russian folk tale of Wasalisa, the story of a young girl's rite of passage. Anyone with information about the arson is urged to call the Fire Department's 24-hour hotline, (718) 722-3600.
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