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The Pearl-Kabriski Mansion, Flushing

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Ash Avenue moves through Flushing in fits and starts. It goes a block, is interrupted for a block, then runs a block more. The section between 147th and 149th Streets, though, looks transplanted from another part of town into Flushing. Its centerpiece is a brilliant white three-story building at 147-38 with a complicated set of front porches, including a many-windowed circular corner porch. The house was originally the Charles Pearl Mansion. The mansion, probably built in the mid-1800s, dates back to eastern Flushing’s development as a bedroom community as the Long Island Rail Road was extended east. At the time Flushing was still dominated by the horticultural industry and the land was owned mostly by the Samuel Parsons family and by Nathan Sanford, the Chancellor of New York State. Sanford Avenue was developed in the 1830s-1870s with grand mansions and estates, some of which were summer-only. Charles Pearl built the Italianate… Read More

A Visit to Everett Park

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There’s an unusual enclave in Queens where Jamaica meets Briarwood, on 145th and 146th Streets and 88th and 89th Avenue east to Sutphin Boulevard, where the avenues are paved with incredible red brick. Every few years I go back to see if the red brick streets are still there, and as of December 2013, I have not yet been disappointed… The architecture on 146th Street is also fairly special and unique to this area… neo-Federal style attached buildings. Indefatigable NYC photographer Matthew X. Kiernan says that on old maps the area is labeled Everett Park.   This 1915 atlas plate (I labeled some of the streets with the modern street numbers) shows an “Everett Park” on Colonial Avenue (now 146th Street). And, this 1916 article in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle notes the intentions of the developer F.W. Scutt & Co. to build new housing in the area:   There’s a discrepancy in the article, as it says the homes… Read More

History in Dutch Kills

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The neighborhood of Dutch Kills named for the narrow tributary of Newtown Creek that runs into its southern reaches. It was the site of a British garrison during the Revolutionary War. Dutch Kills, bordered by Hunters Point on its south, Blissville on its southeast and Queensbridge and Ravenswood on the north, is generally on the immediate north and south sides of Queens Plaza. Walk its streets, and several surprising remnants of an older Queens turn up — or used to, since we lose more of it with each passing week. As with most NYC locales, history is preserved accidentally. An old “Cafeteria” sign peeked out on Bridge Plaza South after an awning was removed (easily photographed from the staircase going to the el train). The building has since been demolished. At 27th Street (formerly Prospect Street) and 42nd Road (formerly Henry Street) an example of the old house numbering system can still… Read More

It’s Spelled Potamogeton Pond

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I must admit to being stumped by a sign I encountered in eastern Queens, and found that it indeed was a misspelling. Eastern Queens has a collection of vast parks – the familiar Flushing Meadows-Corona Park, Kissena Park and its Corridor, Alley Pond Park, and Cunningham Park. (Aside from Forest Park and Astoria Park, western Queens is somewhat park-starved.) There are also parkways -– green spaces along car-only parkways built by traffic czar Robert Moses in the early 20th century such as the Belt, the Cross Island, and today’s scene at Grand Central Parkway. I was rambling along Bell Boulevard just north of the GCP in March 2011 when a sign caught my eye at the corner of 86th Avenue, which serves as the northern border of the GCP along with some relatively undeveloped parkland. It read: Potomogeton Park, which I assumed was a Native American place name. Googling it, I found that it… Read More

Secrets of Kissena Park

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Kissena Park, in eastern Flushing between Rose and Oak Avenues, Kissena Boulevard, Booth Memorial Avenue and 164th Street, lies on the former plant nursery grounds of Samuel Bowne Parsons, and does, in fact, contain the last remnants of the Parsons plant businesses. A natural body of water fed by springs connecting to the Flushing River was named Kissena by Parsons, and is likely the only Chippewa (a Michigan tribe) place name in New York State. Parsons, a native American enthusiast, used the Chippewa term for “cool water” or simply “it is cold.” After Samuel Parsons died in 1906 the family sold the part of the plant nursery to NYC, which then developed Kissena Park, and the other part to developers Paris-MacDougal, which set about developing the area north of the park. Kissena Park attained its present size in 1927. Much of its southern end remains wilderness, with bridle paths running through it. In… Read More

Farrington’s of College Point

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Motorists getting a fillup or an oil check at Farrington’s Service Station at 15th Avenue and 126th Street in College Point may be interested in knowing that the station has been in operation since 1868, long before there were any automobiles to service. “Farrington” is an old name in Flushing and College Point; the first Farringtons arrived in Flushing in the 1640s. Farrington Street, which now ends at the Whitestone Expressway, was formerly a main route between the two communities. The road traversed the former Farrington’s Meadows. A Farrington married a descendant of John Bowne, a Quaker who spearheaded a battle for religious freedom in 1640s Flushing when he refused to convert to the Dutch Reformed Church and eventually forced Peter Stuyvesant to allow diversity in religion. William Farrington opened a farrier and blacksmith on 14th Avenue and 126th Street in 1868, and the business has survived through several modes of animal and mechanically-conducted… Read More

A Little Bit of Philly in Kew Gardens Hills

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When the Queens County Savings Bank main branch, at Main Street and 76th Avenue, was constructed in 1953, it was meant to be a replica of… … Independence Hall in Philadelphia. In fact, it has a Liberty Bell model in the lobby, minus the famed crack. The Queens County Savings Bank at 75-44 Main Street was erected from 1952-1953 and opened February 15th, 1954. It was considered by locals to be the center of a then expanding village. In 1954, it won a building award by the Queens Chamber of Commerce as part of its annual competition. The bank overlooks a triangle called Freedom Square, which features a flagpole dedicated to Theodore Herzl. A Hungarian Jew, Herzl (1860-1904) was the founder of modern Zionism. He supported the establishment of a Jewish national state and organized the first Zionist World Congress in 1897, serving as its president until his death. The city renamed Ames Street in… Read More

A Walk on Whitney Avenue, Elmhurst

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Most of Whitney Avenue in Elmhurst runs from Broadway northeast to Roosevelt Avenue at 93rd Street, through a street grid that tilts northeast against the prevailing one. This was part of an early 20th century real estate development in which the streets were originally numbered and only later — by 1915 — were they given the names they still carry, Aske, Benham, Case, Denman, Elbertson, Forley, Gleane, Hampton, Ithaca, Judge, Ketcham, Layton, Macnish. By 1915, Roosevelt Avenue had been laid out and the el was under construction.   Whitney Avenue is relatively short but one house of worship after the other, from origins all over the planet, can be found along its length. Christian Testimony Church, across the street from Elmhurst Memorial Park, the triangle formed by Whitney Avenue (formerly Warner), 43rd (formerly Ludlow, then Kingsland Avenue) and Judge Street (formerly 3rd Street — most Queens streets have past lives) has a Chinese-dominated congregation… Read More

The Last of Shea

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Shea Stadium came into being along with the last NYC World’s Fair in 1964. It was named for attorney William A. Shea, who, after the Brooklyn Dodgers left for Los Angeles for the 1958 season (and the Dodgers have now called LA home longer than Brooklyn by now) worked tirelessly for National League baseball to return to New York City. His committee first attempted to get the Reds, Phillies or Pirates to move to New York (can you imagine stars of the era like Frank Robinson, Richie Allen or Roberto Clemente with “New York” displayed on their uniforms?). None bit, so Shea and Branch Rickey formed a new major league — the Continental League — that would rival the NL and AL. In reality, this was a ruse — a bluff — to get the National League to place a team in NYC. MLB expanded — added new teams —… Read More

Brookville Park and the Ghost Train

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In the colonial era, Rosedale in southeast Queens was the eastern end of the settlement known as Springfield, so called for abundant fresh water in the area. Native Americans had used it as a hunting ground for centuries prior to that. An early British settler was named John Foster, and so the area was named Foster’s Meadows, as was the Long Island Rail Road station when the railroad arrived in the late 1800s. The only road through the meadows, now an undeveloped part of Brookville Park, was known as Old Foster’s Meadow Road until it was renamed Brookville Boulevard in the 1920s. It remains the only road connecting Rosedale with Rockaway Boulevard east of Guy Brewer Boulevard and if you look at the map, that’s a lot of territory. While Brookville Park encompasses 90 acres, the portion south of 149th Avenue, is undeveloped and wild. The cultivated section is generally between South… Read More

The End of the Franny Lew

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Francis Lewis Boulevard (Cross Island Boulevard) at Crocheron Avenue in Auburndale in 1938. It was easy driving then! “Frankie Lew” has become an eight-lane behemoth since. (Photo courtesy of Brooklyn Collectibles.) Francis Lewis Boulevard, named for a Queens resident (1713-1803) who was a signer of the Declaration of Independence, is the longest street that’s restricted to Queens (there are longer roads like Northern Blvd. that are longer, but extend far into Nassau and Suffolk Counties). It runs through Whitestone, Auburndale, Fresh Meadows, Holliswood, Hollis, Cambria Heights, and Rosedale. Lewis, a Welshman by birth, arrived in New York in 1734 and moved to Long Island in 1775; he became a delegate to the Second Continental Congress from New York. Shortly after he signed the document, the British destroyed his home and property and took his wife prisoner for several months; she died shortly after her release. Lewis lived in poverty for the rest of… Read More

A Walk in Clintonville, Whitestone

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According to legend, Whitestone takes its name from a large offshore rock where tides from the East River and Long Island Sound met; in other accounts the name is in honor of the White Stone Chapel, erected by townsman Samuel Leggett in 1837. For a time, Whitestone was known as Clintonville, after NYC mayor and NY State Governor DeWitt Clinton, who lived in the area. Both Leggett and Clintonville are recalled in area street names. DeWitt Clinton (1769-1828) was one of early New York’s pre-eminent politicians, serving in the NY State Assembly and as a state Senator (1798-1811), US Senator from New York (1802-1803); NYC mayor (1803-1815) NY State Governor (1817-1822) and ran unsuccessfully for US President as a Federalist against incumbent President James Madison in 1812. DeWitt Clinton lived in Queens County, primarily during his time as mayor, in a mansion near Newtown Creek in Maspeth that burned down in 1933, though he had… Read More

Ride the Forest Park Carousel

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Every year, it seems, sees the closing of more of New York’s classic carousels, but Forest Park’s, just off Woodhaven Boulevard south of Myrtle, is still delighting kids big and small as it has since it was moved here from Dracut, Massachusetts, in 1971. This Daniel Muller carousel, built in 1903 and containing 54 wood horses and other animals, is one of just two remaining in the country. It replaced an earlier carousel that burnt down in 1966. The carousel contains 49 horses, a lion, a tiger, a deer, and two chariots arranged in three concentric circles. The carousel also contains an original carousel band organ. It’s a buck a ride for all ages. Five other New York City parks operate carousels: Prospect Park in Brooklyn, Central Park and Bryant Park in Manhattan, Flushing Meadows-Corona Park in Queens, and Willowbrook Park in Staten Island. The carousel has earned a historic sign, one among… Read More

The Schladermundt Structures, Flushing Meadows

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There they stand on the Flushing Bay Promenade just north of Citifield… two odd fiberglass rain shelters that appear to me resembling the Vampire Squid, which has webbing between its tentacles that gives it a batlike appearance. (They also look like Sally Field’s “Flying Nun” headpiece.) These shelters are mostly unremarked upon by promenade bicyclists and strollers, but they are true relics — they were built for the 1964-1965 Worlds’ Fair and were retained after the Fair closed. The shelters were researched by Paul Lukas, a pro sports uniform aficionado of Uni Watch fame both on ESPN and the proprietary Uni Watch site (and much earlier, the Beer Frame zine and Inconspicuous Consumption site which, among many other things, helped inspire FNY) and the architect Kirsten Hively. As it turns out there were originally three such structures placed aside the World’s Fair Marina, designed by architect Peter Schladermundt, who is also responsible for the Marina, which also appeared in its present configuration… Read More

Fifty Years After the Fair at the NY State Pavilion

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Designed by Philip Johnson, the NY State Pavilion was among the most striking buildings in a Fair full of them. It consists of the “Tent of Tomorrow” consisting of sixteen 100-foot columns that supported a 50,000-square-foot roof of multicolored panels (which was removed in the 1970s) as well as three towers, measuring 60, 150 and 226 feet tall. Fairgoers could ascend top the top of the towers via “Sky Streak” capsule elevators, and dine at a restaurant on the shortest. Inside the pavilion, there was a scale model of the new St. Lawrence River hydroelectric plant, NY State industry information, artwork from the 19th-century Hudson River School, and portraits of NY State colonists. There were reproductions of historic steam trains and vintage automobiles, as well as rides for the kiddies. Tuesday, April 22nd, was the 50th anniversary of the opening of the 1964-1965 World’s Fair. In 1964 President Lyndon B. Johnson,… Read More

A Pair of Woodhaven Historic Structures (and a Little Something in Brooklyn)

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Woodhaven and Ozone Park were settled in the 1600s by Dutch and English settlers, who gradually eased out Native Americans; Woodhaven became a racing hotbed in the 1820s when Union Course, at what is now Jamaica Avenue and Woodhaven Boulevard was built in 1820s. Centerville and Aqueduct Race Tracks would follow. From the 1830s to the 1850s, what is now East New York and Cypress Hills, Brooklyn, and Woodville, Queens, were developed by Connecticut businessman John Pitkin. To avoid confusion by the Post Office with an upstate New York State town in the days before zip codes, Woodville residents voted to change Woodville’s name to Woodhaven in 1853. Much of old Woodhaven has been blunted away from nearly two centuries of development, but some great pieces from the old days are still found here and there. There are plenty of other buildings with ornate cupolas and towers in New York City, but this… Read More

Scrabble in Jackson Heights

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It seems to be the height of redundancy and a complete waste to post two maroon street signs indicating neighborhoods designated by the NYC’s Landmarks Preservation Commission at one corner in Jackson Heights, at 35th Avenue and 81st  Street  at the Community Methodist Church. What’s the Department of Transportation up to? One sign shows 35th Avenue normally, but the other one has small numbers after each letter: “1” after T, A, E, N, U and E, and “4” after the H and V. It’s all because of Jackson Heights resident Alfred Butts. In the 1940s Butts, an architect by trade and Community Methodist congregant, created a new word game combining the features of anagrams and crossword puzzles, calling it “Criss Cross Words,” and shopped it around to game and toy manufacturers without success. In 1948, Butts sold the rights to the game to Criss Cross Words fans Mr. and Mrs. James Burnot,… Read More

Corona Plaza and National Street

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The IRT Flushing Line opened in stages between 1915 and 1928. The stations between Grand Central and Vernon-Jackson opened in 1915. Meanwhile, in Queens, the Hunters Point and Court House Square stations opened in November 1916, and the elevated stations out to 103rd/Corona Plaza in April 1917. There were 3 further extensions: to 111th Street in October 1925; Willets Point Boulevard (modern signage erroneously leaves off the “Boulevard”, as the actual Willets Point is at Fort Totten) in May 1927; and finally, an underground station on Main Street on January 2, 1928. The line was extended west two stops to Times Square by 1927. The Flushing Line is due to expand again, to the West Side Javits Convention Center, in late 2014. Seen from the el platform is what was once the end of the Flushing Line  between 1917 and 1925, called Corona Plaza/Alburtis Avenue before Queens streets were numbered in the 1920s.… Read More

The Business of Sunnyside

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Skillman Avenue runs from Hunters Point in western Queens along Sunnyside Yards and then through Sunnyside Gardens, ending at Roosevelt Avenue – beginning and ending with the IRT Flushing Line, from the Hunters Point Avenue station to a point just past the 52nd St/Lincoln Street station. The avenue’s length has varied over the years – it attained its present route in the late 1910s, when it was built out as far as Roosevelt, but the portion adjoining Sunnyside Yards (which opened in 1910) as far as Harold Avenue (39th Street) was known as Meadow Street until about 1920, when Meadow Street was changed to Skillman. Meanwhile, the portion of Roosevelt Avenue under the IRT el was called Skillman Avenue  as far east as the intersection with Woodside and Betts Avenue (now 58th Street) until about the same time. Skillman is an English name though its progenitors were Dutch. There were Skillmans… Read More

Humble Beginnings, Humble Endings

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Queens is the biggest borough, and has some of New York City’s longest streets. And like everything else, those streets are the result of evolution. Let’s take a look today at two of the borough’s longest routes and review their origins, while taking a look at their humble beginnings, or endings, depending on your point of view. Roosevelt Avenue Seen here is Roosevelt Avenue’s eastern end, where it meets Northern Boulevard at 155th Street in Flushing. Here is a soon-to-be defunct McDonalds, an IHOP restaurant, a branch of the Queens Public Library, a shopping center, and flags aplenty. Roosevelt Avenue, named for President Theodore, is relatively new on the Queens map; it’s soon to celebrate its centennial. It is a product of the Flushing elevated train, since when the line was constructed between 1914 and 1928, it required a right of way. It was decided to cut a street through that… Read More
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