Veterans Grove

The city acquired the land from the Cord Meyer Development Company by condemnation in 1928. It was named Elmhurst Memorial Park at the request of Elmhurst Post 298 of the American Legion and renamed Veterans Grove in September 1985. A World War I-era howitzer once sat in the center of the triangle; NYC Parks records that at the onset of World War II such guns were collected and melted down, and that a plaque celebrating all Elmhurst veterans replaced it. Parks also records that the home of the humanitarian Walentyna Janta-Połczyński and her husband Aleksander was adjacent to this park, that during World War II Walentyna translated reports from the Polish Underground State into English which "revealed Nazi atrocities, including the existence of concentration camps in German-occupied Poland, to the United Nations," that they moved into the house in 1960, which "became a haven for recent migrants from Poland," and that Walentyna "stayed in the house until April 2020 when she died at the age of 107."