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City Calls for Elmhurst Park Cleanup Day in Honor of Late Employee

By Katie Honan | June 9, 2015 4:17pm
 Jennifer Kao helped create Elmhurst Park on a former brownfield.
Jennifer Kao helped create Elmhurst Park on a former brownfield.
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Parks Department

ELMHURST — A Parks Department employee who died tragically in May will be honored Thursday at one of the many parks she created and planned in Queens.

Jennifer Kao, 41, worked for 12 years in the Parks Department, most recently in the planning and parks land division as a senior manager, according to officials.

She was an integral part in the creation of new open spaces around Queens, including Hunter's Point South and Elmhurst Park, according to her supervisor Alyssa Cobb Konon.

Kao, who lived in Forest Hills, jumped off the George Washington Bridge on May 6, according to published reports.

Konon, who is the assistant commissioner for parklands and planning, said in a statement the Parks Department was "deeply saddened" by the loss. 

On June 11, roughly 40 colleagues and community members will gather at Elmhurst Park on Grand Avenue from 10 a.m until 1 p.m. to weed, plant and mulch around the park's 620 trees.

At 10:30 a.m., they'll gather to plant a redbud tree in Kao's memory. 

Kao and the Parks Department turned a former brownfield, and home to the famed Elmhurst Gas Tanks, into a six-acre park with rolling hills, a jogging path and playgrounds for kids.

A biography of Kao posted after she was selected as employee of the month in 2006 noted her work on the Shore Parkway Greenway, the Silvercup Studios project and "a half dozen other projects currently in progress." 

She also helped acquire millions of dollars to help pay for projects, the biography said.

"Her attention to detail and patient persistence ensured resources for dozens of parks, and we are very grateful to have had her as a friend and colleague," Konon said.