The park offers a nature trail, cross-country skiing, a playground and playing fields, horseshoe, volleyball, basketball, and bocce ball courts, picnic tables and pavilions, fireplaces and grills, and recreation programs.

[2] Like Hempstead Lake State Park, Valley Stream State Park contained Cornell's Pond, a feeder reservoir for the Ridgewood Reservoir.

Initially the park included Cornell's Pond, which had a freshwater beach that charged an admission fee of 10 cents.

Crowded and unsanitary conditions led local residents to lobby for its closing in 1947.

In 1958, the state to transferred the park's southern portion with this pond to the Village of Valley Stream.