Follow the Yellow Brick: A Visit to Ridgewood’s Stockholm Street

May 19, 2015, 8:00 am

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You could call Ridgewood’s Stockholm Street the yellow brick road of Queens. The street’s main claim to fame is a charming landmarked block boasting 36 homes built with yellow brick from the Balthazar Kreischer kilns of Staten Island. The street itself  is constructed with red-brown brick from the same kilns — and it’s the only brick-paved street in the borough. There are similar rows of yellow brick houses elsewhere in Ridgewood and in Long Island City, but only these have the added attraction of thin, Doric-columned porches. It makes for one of the most distinctive parts of Ridgewood — an area that’s seeing an influx of newcomers arriving via neighboring Bushwick and other Brooklyn neighborhoods. It’s an area worth a visit for those thinking about following suit, or just exploring Queens. Bushwick and parts of Ridgewood long ago were nicknamed Old Germania Heights; dozens of breweries and German beer halls used to dot the landscape on the side streets.… Read More

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Introduction to Glendale Queens: Where to Go, What to Do

May 26, 2015, 6:45 am

≫ Next: Little Neck-Douglaston Memorial Day Parade, USA’s Biggest, Celebrates Its 88th Year

≪ Previous: Follow the Yellow Brick: A Visit to Ridgewood’s Stockholm Street

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The Shops at Atlas Park Glendale is a well-kept small town in western Queens filled with local restaurants and dining options as well as one of New York City’s largest malls (constructed atop a former industrial park) and the vast Forest Park. Glendale was formerly one of New York City’s most populous German-American bastions, and home to a number of restaurants specializing in German cuisine, such as Gebhardt’s, Durow’s and Von Westernhagen’s. Zum Stammtisch is the lone survivor, although it was the new kid on the block when it was founded in 1972 by Bavarian immigrant John Lehner at 69-46 Myrtle Avenue, just west of Cooper Avenue. Its name in English means, approximately, “regulars’ table,” a friendly place where people sit around to chat. The homey wood-paneled interior resembles a Bavarian hunting lodge. Lunch and dinner menus feature filling German fare such as sausages, chicken, pork and veal cutlets, and roast beef prepared in myriad ways. In… Read More

Little Neck-Douglaston Memorial Day Parade, USA’s Biggest, Celebrates Its 88th Year

June 4, 2015, 6:45 am

≫ Next: Queens Botanical Garden: A Slice of Flushing Paradise

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One of the many Memorial Day parades held in New York City, the Little Neck-Douglaston Memorial Day Parade, instituted in 1927, has grown to become the nation’s largest. In any year, you can usually find New York City’s contingent of Congress members, the New York State governor, New York City mayor, and at least one of the state’s two senators. The parade actually begins in Great Neck, and spans two municipalities in two counties. A reviewer on Northern Boulevard can expect a full hour and a half of pageantry by sticking to the same (preferably shady) spot. For 2015, the parade honored those who served in the Vietnam War on its 50th anniversary. Mounted members of the 1st Regiment of the US Volunteer Cavalry kicked off the procession this year (pictured above). Mayor Bill De Blasio as well as State Senator Chuck Schumer, Queens Borough President Melinda Katz, and Congresswoman Grace Meng… Read More

Queens Botanical Garden: A Slice of Flushing Paradise

June 9, 2015, 6:45 am

≫ Next: Visiting College Point, the Small Town in the Big City

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Tucked close to Flushing’s bustling downtown and along fast and furious, pedal-to-the-metal Main Street is Queens’ own official Botanical Garden at 43-50 Main Street at Elder Avenue. It may be smaller than the New York Botanical Garden in the Bronx or Brooklyn’s Botanic Gardens at Prospect Park (Brooklyn, just to be different, loses the -al) but it is no less beautiful. QBG evolved from the “Gardens of Paradise” exhibit at the 1939-1940 World’s Fair, continued after World War II as the Queens Botanical Garden Society. It opened in its current location in 1961. Among the original plantings from the 1939 site are two blue atlas cedars framing a tree gate sculpture at the park’s entrance. Today the park is a 39-acre oasis in one of New York City’s busiest neighborhoods. Among the most popular attractions in the garden this time of year is the blooming Rose Garden, where several different species of roses in a rainbow… Read More

Visiting College Point, the Small Town in the Big City

June 22, 2015, 6:45 am

≫ Next: A Stroll Through Hunters Point

≪ Previous: Queens Botanical Garden: A Slice of Flushing Paradise

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The Poppenhusen Institute, built in 1868 There is no college in College Point, and hasn’t been since about 1850, when St. Paul’s College, whose site we will visit later in the tour, was converted into an elementary school and then a summer resort. The college was founded in 1835 as a seminary by the Rev. Augustus Muhlenberg. Communities known as Strattonport and Flammersberg united to form College Point in 1867. Though the Lawrence family, a name familiar to Queens historians, were the first to settle in what is now the College Point area in the colonial era, it was an entrepreneur named Conrad Poppenhusen who built downtown College Point, to house his factory workers, and it is his legacy that shapes College Point to this day. College Point today is about as fully realized as small town life gets within the five boroughs. It’s effectively separated from the rest of the city by the East River,… Read More

A Stroll Through Hunters Point

June 26, 2015, 5:49 am

≫ Next: Golden Crown Returns to Queens: Pavilion Paint Project Under Way

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The city targeted Hunters Point in southwest Queens  (as well as Williamsburg) for neighborhood “renewal” several years ago, which entailed changing the zoning to make glassy, high-rise apartment buildings facing the water possible. The decision has had benefits, as Gantry State Park, named for the large lifts that once transported goods from barges into railcars here, has become a jewel. Some say, though, that the influx of towers has overly taxed the sewer system and that there’s still no real grocery shopping to be had on Vernon Boulevard. It’s like a big city has been plunked down in a place where there’s nothing to support it. So, while previous trips to Hunters Point have found me down by the water, this time I got off the No. 7 train at the Vernon-Jackson station and  stayed inland along Vernon Boulevard to take a look at the quickly developing area. First, however, I did make a… Read More

Golden Crown Returns to Queens: Pavilion Paint Project Under Way

July 7, 2015, 6:45 am

≫ Next: End of the N: Astoria-Ditmars

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A recent visit to the New York State Pavilion in Flushing Meadows found the “modern ruin” in the midst of a makeover. The crowd-funded New York State Pavilion Paint Project is restoring the Pavilion in an attempt to return it to its former glory. The repainting is slowly but surely making a difference. The walls inside the “Tent of Tomorrow” have been restored to splendor.   Original roof of the Tent of Tomorrow The Pavilion was designed for the 1964 World’s Fair by famed architect Philip Johnson, whose other works in New York City include the interior of the Seagram Building on Park Avenue, the Sony Tower — formerly the AT&T Building — on Madison Avenue, and the “Lipstick Building” on 3rd Avenue and East 43rd Street. The Pavilion has three parts: the Tent of Tomorrow, the three Observation Towers, and the Theaterama. The Tent of Tomorrow is a structure of 16 concrete towers supporting a 50,000 square-foot roof. When it was completed, supports… Read More

End of the N: Astoria-Ditmars

July 14, 2015, 6:30 am

≫ Next: A Walk in Woodhaven

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Astoria. Ditmars Boulevard. The subway signs on the R train advertised these outlandish, far-off locales as I boarded it in Bay Ridge, back when I lived there for the better part of three decades. But I never really thought to trouble this northwest section of Queens until I actually moved to the borough a couple of decades ago. Newcomers riding to the end of the N train (it swapped with the R in 1987) will find it extraordinarily hospitable. There’s Astoria Park with its Olympic-size pool facing the Hell Gate section of the East River and Wards and Randalls Islands. Then there’s a bustling Greek neighborhood (now increasingly upscale) centered along the main shopping drags of 30th Avenue and Broadway, and spectacular views of midtown Manhattan and the Triborough and Hell Gate Bridges. In recent years, Astoria and its neighbor, Long Island City, have become increasingly welcoming to major museums such as the Museum of… Read More

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A Walk in Woodhaven

July 21, 2015, 6:45 am

≫ Next: Brooklyn-Queens Boulevard: Strolling Metropolitan From Williamsburg to Jamaica

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The community of Woodhaven lies just east of the undefended border between Brooklyn and Queens. It’s a fairly large neighborhood located between Forest Park on the north, Liberty Avenue on the south, Eldert Lane (the official boundary of Brooklyn and Queens) on the west and Woodhaven Boulevard on the east. Visitors to Woodhaven can easily travel on the J train from Williamsburg, Bushwick and East New York to the Forest Parkway station; connections to the J can be made from the A and L trains at Broadway Junction. From the 1830s to the 1850s, the area was known as Woodville. But this was an era before the invention of zip codes, and there was some Post Office confusion between New York City’s Woodville and another Woodville upstate. In 1853, residents voted to change Woodville’s name to Woodhaven. Famous former residents of Woodhaven include actor Adrien Brody, composer George Gershwin, 1960s pop star Brian Hyland, and showman Danny Kaye.   Neir’s Tavern,… Read More

Brooklyn-Queens Boulevard: Strolling Metropolitan From Williamsburg to Jamaica

July 28, 2015, 6:45 am

≫ Next: Metropolitan Avenue: Beyond the Creek, Part 2

≪ Previous: A Walk in Woodhaven

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Brooklynites know Metropolitan Avenue as an east-west thoroughfare dividing the north and south sections of Williamsburg (though others consider Grand Street the true divider). It’s a street that holds some sentiment for me, as in 2010 lamppost maven Bob Mulero and I curated a NYC lamppost exhibition at the City Reliquary at 370 Metropolitan Avenue at Havemeyer Street. I took advantage of a sunny weekend day to march the entire 13 miles (or so my iPhone indicated) of Metropolitan Avenue from the East River waterfront all the way to Jamaica, where Metropolitan peters out at the Van Wyck Expressway and Jamaica Avenue. It’s a relatively easy walk, which took me about six hours since I was constantly stopping for photographs. If you want a real workout and you’re younger than I am, you could probably power-walk the whole length in less than five hours, especially if you have good luck catching green lights. Metropolitan… Read More

Metropolitan Avenue: Beyond the Creek, Part 2

August 4, 2015, 6:45 am

≫ Next: A Walk in Jackson Heights

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Last week, I showed BQ readers the highlights of my walk down the entire length of Metropolitan Avenue, from the East River waterfront all the way to its eastern end at Jamaica Avenue, with an emphasis on its Queens identity east of Newtown Creek. I only got us as far as 69th Street, just east of the last stop on the M train. Metropolitan  Avenue is about 13 miles long, end to end, and today’s highlights cover a lot of territory from Middle Village to Forest Hills. If you’re not up to the challenge of walking the whole way, that’s fine: simply take the M to the end of the line and grab the B54 bus heading east, which runs nearly the entire length of the avenue with a detour into The Shops at Atlas Park. The best way to see a neighborhood, though, is by putting one foot in front of the other; behind… Read More

A Walk in Jackson Heights

August 11, 2015, 6:45 am

≫ Next: Nearest Faraway Place: Far Rockaway

≪ Previous: Metropolitan Avenue: Beyond the Creek, Part 2

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In a borough largely ignored by NYC’s Landmarks Preservation Commission, the magnificent garden apartments of Jackson Heights are a happy exception. Today’s Jackson Heights is a neighborhood of handsome six-story co-operative apartments, most of which surround a central garden. They appeared — seemingly out of nowhere — beginning in 1914 when the entire area was not much more than a swampy meadow. The Queensboro Corporation and developer Edward MacDougall built now-landmarked housing along today’s 82nd Street; the area became known as Jackson Heights honoring John C. Jackson, who laid Jackson Avenue, now Northern Boulevard, out across the meadow beginning in 1859. The boundaries of Jackson Heights proper are fairly well-defined, from the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway on the west to about 90th Street on the east, and from Roosevelt Avenue on the south to the Grand Central Parkway (and LaGuardia Airport) on the north. 74th Street between Roosevelt Avenue and 37th Avenue contains New York City’s largest concentration of immigrants… Read More

Nearest Faraway Place: Far Rockaway

August 18, 2015, 6:45 am

≫ Next: Visit Juniper Valley Park, Far From the Crowds in Middle Village

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It was the hottest day of the year, and I spent it in Far Rockaway. The plan was simple. I would take the A train — which runs through Brooklyn Heights, downtown, Fort Greene, Bedford-Stuyvesant and East New York through the heart of Brooklyn and Woodhaven, Queens and runs across Jamaica Bay — and take it to its farthest limit: the Mott Avenue station in Far Rockaway. There are many things to see in Far Rockaway: historic commercial buildings, a Monticello-inspired post office, impressive churches, lovely homes, and more. When I was a teenager in the mid-1970s, I would brave the Marine Parkway Bridge — which has perilously low railings and prompted a fear of gusting winds — and cross Jamaica Bay on my bicycle. One day the weather was sufficiently crisp and I followed the concrete elevated line all the way to the end. I had attained Far Rock on my bike. I… Read More

Visit Juniper Valley Park, Far From the Crowds in Middle Village

August 25, 2015, 6:45 am

≫ Next: An Insider’s Guide to Queens’ Own Broadway

≪ Previous: Nearest Faraway Place: Far Rockaway

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Nestled in the heart of Middle Village, Juniper Valley Park — which sits between Juniper Boulevards North and South, Lutheran Avenue and 71st Street on the west and Dry Harbor Road on the east — is almost intentionally situated far from the crowds and noise that the subway bring. It’s one of the youngest of Queens’ larger parks, having been created in the 1930s. Middle Village lies between Maspeth and Forest Hills and was named in the 1830s after its position along Metropolitan Avenue, which was laid out as a toll road between Williamsburg and Jamaica in the 1810s. A roadhouse as well as several small dwellings and farms arrived in the area, which had come to be considered midway between Williamsburg and Jamaica, hence its name. Large cemeteries such as Lutheran/All-Faiths, Mt. Olivet and St. John’s arrived after 1850 or so, and attracted Sunday visitors; restaurants and saloons sprung up in the… Read More

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An Insider’s Guide to Queens’ Own Broadway

September 1, 2015, 6:30 am

≫ Next: A Historical Guide to Flushing’s Main Street

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There’s a Broadway in every borough. The most famous runs the length of Manhattan and continues into the Bronx and Yonkers beyond that; another forms the border of Bedford Stuyvesant and Bushwick in Brooklyn; another serves as a spine of West New Brighton in Staten Island and runs past the Staten Island Zoo; and then in Queens, whose Broadway runs from Ravenswood to Elmhurst and serves as one of Long Island City’s key shopping arteries, joining Steinway Street and 30th Avenue. Queens’ Broadway, which attained its present length only in the early 20th century, is an amalgam of a number of roads: Broadway in Ravenswood ran southeast to the now-demapped Ridge Road near Newtown Road; and the eastern part between Woodside Avenue and Queens Boulevard is the easternmost section of the colonial-era Hellgate Ferry Road, which connected Elmhurst and the East River; twisting Woodside Avenue follows most of its route today. The routes were joined… Read More

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A Historical Guide to Flushing’s Main Street

September 8, 2015, 6:30 am

≫ Next: A Guide to Myrtle Avenue, the Spine of Ridgewood

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RKO Keith’s, Northern Boulevard and Main Street Since the mid 1600s, the heart of Flushing (named by early Dutch cartographers Vlissingen, later bowdlerized to Flushing by the settling Brits) has been the T-shaped intersection of the present Main Street and Northern Boulevard. In its early years Flushing was a hotbed of religious conflict, as the New Netherland colony Director-General Peter Stuyvesant was intolerant of any other religion but the Dutch Reformed Church; the colonists’ burgeoning religious independence led to the creation of the Flushing Remonstrance, a display concerning which can be found at Flushing Library; and the travails of John Bowne, whose early-1660s home still stands on Bowne Street. In the colonial era, at the cross of the T was a longtime hostelry/tavern called the Flushing Hotel. Stagecoach service between Flushing and the Manhattan ferries began in 1802, running along Bridge Street/Broadway/Northern Boulevard, and traffic proceeding east and west was often in need… Read More

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A Guide to Myrtle Avenue, the Spine of Ridgewood

September 15, 2015, 6:30 am

≫ Next: A Guide to Flushing Meadows-Corona Park, a Sports Destination

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Ridgewood Theatre, 55-27 Myrtle Avenue between St. Nicholas and Putnam avenues Myrtle Avenue, one of the lengthiest streets in both Brooklyn and Queens, runs for nearly 15 miles from Jay Street MetroTech complex in the heart of downtown Brooklyn, east to Jamaica Avenue at the former Triangle Hofbrau. It was first laid out in 1835 from Fulton Street to as far as Cripplebush Road, an ancient Kings County track now largely replaced by Bedford Avenue. It was extended in 1839 to Brooklyn’s Broadway, and again in 1854 as the tolled Jamaica Plank Road out to Jamaica. (Most of NYC’s toll roads of this type were made “free” around 1890-1900.) Horsecars appeared on Myrtle in 1854, which later became trolleys taking electric power from overhead wires. The infamous El shrouded Myrtle from 1888 to 1969 — at first as far as Grand Avenue, to Brooklyn’s Broadway early in 1889, and to Wyckoff Avenue later the same… Read More

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A Guide to Flushing Meadows-Corona Park, a Sports Destination

September 22, 2015, 6:30 am

≫ Next: A Guide to Bayside’s Bell Boulevard, an Architectural and Culinary Mecca

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View of Citifield from the Passerelle Boardwalk over Corona Yard With the recent completion of the United States Open tennis tournament at Arthur Ashe Stadium and the now-expected ascension of the New York Mets into the National League baseball playoffs for the first time since 2006, Flushing Meadows-Corona Park finds itself at the center of New York City’s professional sports life as summer 2015 draws to a close. Let’s take a look at some of these venues as well as the park itself. Rocket Thrower Home to the First World’s Fair Flushing Meadows-Corona Park was created in 1939, when New York City’s first World’s Fair was constructed in the large expanse south of Flushing Bay formerly home to ash heaps and garbage dumps that was memorialized in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s 1925 novel The Great Gatsby. A second World’s Fair was held 25 years later from 1964-65. The present-day park features several leftover elements from both World’s Fairs it has hosted.… Read More

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A Guide to Bayside’s Bell Boulevard, an Architectural and Culinary Mecca

September 29, 2015, 6:30 am

≫ Next: Film History and Eclectic Architecture Abound in Bayside, Queens

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Bayside, in northeast Queens, was first settled by the British around Alley Creek, the East River inlet now leading to Alley Pond Park, in the early 1700s. It was first named Bay Side in 1798 and by the time the one-word spelling appeared in the 1850s, it was a small but potent community, giving rise to governmental leaders and statesmen. The neighborhood has always retained a small-town atmosphere centered around Bell Boulevard. The street is named for Abraham Bell, an Irish Quaker who was a partner in a shipping firm and owned a vast farm in the area, and has nothing at all to do with Alexander Graham Bell, the inventor who obtained the first patent for the telephone. The city, however, has added to the confusion by naming P.S. 205, as well as its playground at 75th Avenue and 217th Street (a couple of blocks from the boulevard), Bell Park… Read More

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Film History and Eclectic Architecture Abound in Bayside, Queens

October 6, 2015, 6:30 am

≫ Next: How Ditmars Boulevard Went From Troubled Waters to a Busy Downtown

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Brownstoner recently took a look at historical and culinary highlights centered on or near Bell Boulevard, the “main street” of Bayside, Queens. But the neighborhood is large and goes far beyond that stretch, with a deep history in film, theater and sports, as well as eclectic architecture. Here are some of Bayside’s historical and architectural highlights. The Boundaries of Bayside Bayside is defined by the East River on the north, the Clearview Expressway on the west, the Long Island Expressway on the south, and the Cross Island Parkway and Alley Pond Park on the east. Unlike a great deal of suburban localities, its side streets feature somewhat individualistic and eclectic architecture, since it was settled in the early 1900s, before Levittown initiated the concept of “cookie-cutter” suburban tracts. A Pre-Hollywood Home for Film Actors In the 1910s Bayside became a film actors’ colony until the nascent industry decamped to Hollywood. The Famous Players-Lasky Corporation built studios… Read More

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