It is an unlikely battleground. It is an even less likely corner of Flushing Meadows-Corona Park in Queens.
If the blacktop were hot enough in the 31-acre, 6,640-space parking lot outside Citi Field, along Roosevelt Avenue, you might be able to grill a hamburger on it. But the tender young trees lining the pedestrian walkways would scarcely offer much shade for your picnic.
Because it is parkland, however, the Appellate Division of State Supreme Court ruled last week that it could not be taken as a development site for a one-million-square-foot shopping mall simply because the administration of former Mayor Michael R.