For years the neighborhood's summer geometry ran east-west along Roosevelt and 37th. This year it runs down the middle of 34th Avenue. The 1.3-mile linear park that residents used to call "the open street" is now the block where the World Cup is being watched, where Sunday performances start at 4 p.m., where the yoga mats come out at 9 a.m., and where a $89 million redesign decision is quietly being made.
If you already live here, the shift is less about discovering something new than about recognizing that the pilot phase is over. The city has committed. The plaza is the spine now, and the streets that feed it, from 78th down to 37th, are being reorganized around it in real time.
The summer 34th Avenue stopped being a pilot
Last November, in front of Neela Dance Academy performers and most of the Alliance for Paseo Park's board, the city officially co-named 26 blocks of 34th Avenue as Paseo Park. That was the moment the pandemic-era experiment turned into permanent civic infrastructure. The corridor gives safe passage to 7,000 schoolchildren traveling to seven public schools, one private school and at least four prekindergarten locations, and is credited with a 42 percent reduction in traffic crashes.
The follow-on number matters more for what happens next. The Department of Transportation will spend $89 million to revamp Paseo Park and fully build out the 1.3 mile-long 34th Avenue open street in Jackson Heights that became a pandemic-era model for reclaiming space for pedestrians, cyclists, and children. That money is not theoretical. It is choosing between two designs this year.
Promenade or Meander: the decision your block is voting on
The DOT narrowed the redesign to two options after months of community input, and the split between the neighborhood's two most active stewards is public.
Option 1, the Promenade. A straight design that runs pedestrian plazas and shared-traffic lanes as parallel corridors down the length of 34th.
Option 2, the Meander. A zig-zagging plan that switches the pedestrian side and the traffic side at every intersection, producing more plaza blocks than the current seven.
Jim Burke, co-founder of the 34th Avenue Open Streets Coalition, which runs daily programming in the park, told Streetsblog his group preferred the Meander because it "preserves the real beauty of what we have now, whereas the Promenade option might degrade the experience of walking and biking." He added: "'Meander' is [the status quo] on steroids. That means more plazas and car-free areas — that's what we really love about it. We currently have plazas on seven blocks. The 'Meander' would give us many more."
The Alliance for Paseo Park, the resident-led nonprofit that formed in 2023 to advocate for the linear park's long-term vision, is not endorsing either plan yet. Board chair Luz Maria Mercado said her nonprofit wasn't satisfied with either option because neither properly addresses the presence of moped users.
If you live between 69th and 93rd, this is not an abstract planning conversation. It is a choice about whether your block gets a plaza or a shared-traffic lane in the buildout.
The World Cup is doing the neighborhood's advocacy work
Paseo Park's biggest argument for permanence this summer is not a hearing or a press release. It is a jumbo screen.
On a Thursday in June, Paseo Park in Jackson Heights buzzed with soccer fans and wandering locals who joined one of the city's first watch parties on 34th Avenue as Mexico and South Africa hit the field to kick off the 2026 World Cup. Fans sporting jerseys from across the globe gathered between 77th and 78th Streets to showcase their cultural pride and enjoy the match. Thursday's kick off watch party was part of an initiative led by the city Department of Transportation, where open plaza streets become front row seats to ten World Cup matches.
Ten matches, staged on the plaza, funded by the city, with kids' footwork instruction on the edges and a cooling station on 78th Street with sprinklers and misters run by the 34th Avenue Open Streets Coalition. That is not a pop-up. That is the plaza being used the way its advocates said it should be used, on the largest possible stage, in front of DOT staff who are about to sign off on the permanent design.
"Growing up, watching past World Cups in other countries, you wish to experience the World Cup as a community as a whole," said Jonathan Enriquez, a Mexican-American local who lives a block away from Paseo Park.
The tournament's group and knockout rounds run through July, which means the neighborhood's July calendar is essentially built around match days on 34th Avenue.
A weekday-through-Sunday shape for July on Paseo Park
If you are trying to fit the plaza into an actual week, this is what the recurring programming looks like right now:
- Sunday, 4 p.m., 78th Street Plaza. The series of performances that takes place every Sunday until the end of August happens on the 78th Street Plaza at 4 p.m.
- Tuesday morning, 9 a.m., 78th Street Plaza. Free yoga classes with Mimi on the 78th Street Plaza in July and August, starting at 9 a.m., with weather updates posted on Mimi's Facebook page.
- Match days, 34th Avenue between 77th and 78th. DOT-run World Cup watch parties on the plaza, with a cooling station and kids' programming from the 34th Avenue Open Streets Coalition.
- Rolling summer weekends, various blocks. Alliance for Paseo Park programs an outdoor photography exhibition, community potluck (the Longest Table), and benefit gatherings on the corridor.
The 78th Street Plaza itself sits between 34th Avenue and Northern Boulevard, which is why the yoga and Sunday performances read as bookends to whatever is happening on the linear park below.
The businesses that make the walk work
The corridor programming would fall apart without the food and coffee that anchors the ends of it. A few names to keep in the rotation if you are already walking Paseo:
Parva Coffee, on 37th Avenue, works as a start-of-walk stop, an artisanal bakeshop and café making breads, soups, salads, coffee, tea, and bagels daily.
Lety's Bakery and Café, at 77-07 37th Avenue, is one block south of Paseo Park's center of gravity and open early. Owner Octavio Herrera was a baker at Veniero's for 21 years before opening his own bakery in Jackson Heights, named after his wife, and has built a devout old-school neighborhood following on Italian cookies, lobster tails, and carrot cake.
Cannelle Patisserie stays on the short list of French pastry destinations in the borough, and shows up on essentially every 2026 bakery roundup in the area.
For an actual meal after a match, Birria-Landia is the Roosevelt Avenue anchor. Birria-Landia makes the city's best birria; this Tijuana-style truck didn't invent birria and wasn't the first NYC place serving it, but it gave birria the headliner status it always deserved. Cositas Ricas works as the late-night bookend, a neon-lit, 24-hour Colombian diner under a large multicolored cow suspended over Roosevelt Avenue, open since 2000. The Queensboro on 82nd is the sit-down option locals recommend when they want something that feels like an occasion without leaving the neighborhood.
Diversity Plaza, at 74th and Roosevelt, is still the quickest way to hop between the 7 line and the linear park, which makes it the practical entry point for guests coming in from Manhattan for a match.
What this actually means for someone who lives here
The story of Jackson Heights in summer 2026 is not that a new park opened. It is that a two-block section of 34th Avenue between 77th and 78th, plus the 78th Street Plaza running up to Northern, has become the neighborhood's default public living room. Every recurring summer event and every one-time World Cup broadcast is being staged on the same 1,000 feet of pavement, and the DOT is watching.
For residents, three things follow from that. The plaza will get more programmed, not less, through August. The design decision between Meander and Promenade is going to close this year, and blocks that want plaza treatment should be showing up to public meetings now. And the businesses that will still be here in five years are the ones learning to run their week around 4 p.m. Sunday, 9 a.m. Tuesday, and whatever match kicks off next.
If you own a home along the corridor or a block off it and want a read on how the redesign might reshape your block's foot traffic, quiet hours, and long-term value, The Agency Long Island is happy to walk it with you. Contact Us.
