162nd Street runs north-south in Queens, a bit here, a bit there, from the Whitestone enclave called Beechhurst south to Jamaica (oddly it never gets south of there, even though there’s plenty of real estate south of Jamaica). Between Northern Boulevard and 46th Avenue in the eastern reaches of Flushing, it’s a two-way main drag, with parking meters and storefronts.
When I moved into fab Flushing in 1993, 162nd was the main north-south shopping drag, with a Hallmark cards franchise, fruit stores, meat markets, two bars (three, if you count one around the corner on Northern) and a basically busy street life. I moved away from the neighborhood in 2007, and was surprised to see things have gotten a lot quieter since I left.
Flushing used to boast an Irish subpopulation, in the minority to be sure, but enough to make a presence felt. In the center, this pair of storefronts on Northern between 161st and 162nd was known as Bridie’s, whose soda bread was so good Mary Beth would squirrel some away to take home in her bag. It later became a Korean “hof” and now it’s been split into two busineses, one of which is a restaurant/bar.
162nd Street was bookended by two ancient and hoary taverns, the Velvet Cup near Northern and Paddy Quinn’s, near Sanford. Quinn’s is still hanging in, but a number of businesses have shuffled through where the Velvet Cup used to be. Sharp-eyed obsevers on the LIRR can still see the sign, which was removed and placed on the building’s roof. I have tried to get the American Sign Museum in Cincy to haul it away and should try again.
Morde’s Junk Shop Antiques is actually one of the few businesses on 162nd that’s not shuttered. The deli where I got newspapers and snacks is still open, on the corner of Station Road, along with a forlorn coffee shop and tobacconist, but they seem to be surviving on inertia alone.
One of these stores used to be my dry cleaners.
Bakery, hardware store, another antiques shop, all closed.
This used to be the fish store. Something is coming soon. The nearby fruit store and drug store have moved elsewhere.
This was the butcher. While I was in the neighborhood it moved to a different location between 43rd and 45th Avenues, then closed after a few years. The local Grand Union became a Korean supermarket several years ago, but I imagine people get meat there now. There was always a vinyl awning sign, which recently was removed, revealing this wonderfully hand lettered linoleum sign that I’d guess was put there in the 1940s.
Kessler Signs, Sanford and 162, is still there as well as the corner weeping beech.
The big Tudor on the corner is home to Petrocelli Insurance as always.
Liquor stores rarely fail. Leiser’s, on the other corner, is a veritable liquor supermarket and is even doing TV commercials now.
Can we kiss 162nd Street goodbye or will it become the mecca it was when I first arrived in the 1990s?
7/18/2012
When I was kid in the 1970′s and early 1980′s, my mom often referred to 162nd street as “antiques row”. There were at least 5 or 6 antique stores. Quality antiques, not common junk. Sad to see its all disappeared.
There are still 1, maybe 2
As some classic author (Eugene O’Neill?) observed: “You can’t go home again”. Prior to my AZ exile in 2005 I would pass through this neighborhod every Sunday on my way to Church On the Hill. As late as 6/05 the are appeared to be thriving but in transition. Apparently the Era Of BO has transformed it into a wasteland like so many places in this faded glory nation. Hurry November.
Oh how true- you can’t go home again. I had an office around the corner (in the old bowling alley) and my grandmother lived around the corner on Sanford & 161st, (Pic of her house on FNY)
Remember? The Roosevelt Movie, Popeyes, Pizza Garden (up Northern a bit), the bowling alley, the saw sharpening shop with the big handsaw sign (was a diner once) , Finnochios bakery (great cannolis).
Now I’m just rambling. To make a long story short, it was a great place at a great time and I’m sorry to see what it has become.
So sad, grew up there, 165 & 43ed, first job was at fiinnochios, I filled my share of cannolis, I loved it ! think I was 14 or 15 yrs old and worked there for a couple of years…. loved it !! I’m 57 now and I teach, I still tell my students about that job and how we had to use string to tie the boxes… then I worked at mapleways bowling ally, snack bar ….. loved it, the owners Manny & Bill were great and all my friends hung out there. well now I’m rambling.. LOL… and yes it was great, to see it now is so sad to me. but thanks for the memories..
)
I worked at Maplewaay’s Bowl, 163st and Northern Blvd., through high school and college from 1967 through early 1973. I did everything from pin chasing during leagues, painting, bartending, cooking, working the desk. I firrst worked for John Giordano who then sold to Manny Bologna and Bill Kelly. It was a great time and I had lots of laughs. Harry’s Bar and Grill was next door and Harry was an interesting character. Sal’s pizza was great neat the tressel. I had my first underage drink at Michael’s lounge on 162nd street off Sanford Avenue. It was a clean and spotless neighborhood. When I drive by now it makes me very sad. I am also sad when I drive by my old neighborhood near Flushing Hospital.Ppeople had pride in their homes. It looks rundown with bars on home windows. Nothing last forever except memories – thank God.
Hello Frank
It’ s been about 50 years since our last contact at St. Mary’s. Remember Johns candy store, Ryskinds, the German Deli, the Hobby shop ( before the Pizzeria) and Ray Fernandez, Dolph Chirino,and Peter Mihalick?
c u in another 50.
George Hennessey
George Hennessey-There’s a name from the past, as is Frank Malafronte.
In addition to the stores you mentioned, remember John’s Pizzaria (spent lots of time hanging out with “my crew” (Paul Lahey, your aforementioned Ray Fernandez, my brother Tommy, Henry Cardozo, Dennis Carr and Eddie Testa (deceased.) I hadn’t thought of it in years, but Frank’s father (also Frank I believe) was a super friendly guy, known as the Mayor of 45th Ave. I hope all is well with you guys.
Do you remember the small grocery store (owner was Andy) that was across from Amoruso’s on 45th.? Or Bill from the hardware store? My family moved to 45th. Ave. & 149th. St. @ 1954. So many changes. Moved to Elm Ave in 1971. Now, Florida. The neighborhood was so nice and clean back then…was a great place to raise children. Mine both went to St. Mary’s school, and still remain in touch with childhood friends.
Sooo, this city’s (and nation’s) selling out the “Main Streets” of America over the past 40 years or so is all because of a President who has been in office 3+ years? Yep, that must be it.
Damn that Wal-Mart and Home Depot! Wish “B.O.” never came up with that idea!
Ugh…
it was thomas wolfe that said,,you cant go home…sorry
The Obama Depression has killed off or wounded many local shopping streets. New Dorp Lane on Staten Island is among them. Stores lay vacant for years, and more of those gold buying places spring up. Same all over the country.
I lived in the apartment building on the corner of 161st and Northern. On Sunday March 6, 1977 my son was born in the morning and my in-laws and I made first call at noon at the Velvet Cup on 162nd Street for a celebratory drink. Everything a man could want was within a two-block walk of my apartment, including an OTB.
I’ve been a Long Island homeowner for 34 years now but I loved that neighborhood, But lordy, how it has changed. Right across from the Velvet Cup was a small piizzeria whose name I forget. The pizza was no great shakes but Mama worked a small kitchen in the back and the Italian food was the best I have ever had.
Was it Happy Days pizza? Or Fratelli’s? I grew up on 162nd St and 35th Ave. We still live in the area, but closer to Holy Cross HS now. I still miss Bridie’s!
It was originally Happy Days, But turned into Tony’s which turned into Fratelli’s
I grew up in that apartment building, too, but I was born in 1946. The building itself went up in 1941. My grandparents sold their house on 160 St. and moved in there after it opened. It was a great place to grow up. I moved out of the building in 1974 and spent a year in San Diego. When we came back, we got an apartment in a house near Memorial Field. I moved out of New York for good in 1991. I’ve been back several times in the past eight years or so ago, and I recognized all the buildings but didn’t know what they housed anymore. I can’t go back without seeing a lot of ghosts. I just drove down Northern on my way to Glen Cove. I had no idea 162nd had become such a mess. I see someone blamed the problem on Obama. It’s Bush and the guys who are in the pocket of Wall Street that have put cities into a mess. People had been fleeing them like mad in the past decades for the suburbs. It’s a shame because it is an historic area. My grandparents moved there in 1920. The only way to reverse it is to gentrify the area and have suburbanites move back into the city.
Sadly, many of the main drags in Brooklyn and Queens are shuttering up. Have you seen 86th Street in Brooklyn up by Bensonhurst and Gravesend? Really sad to see so many business closing shop now, unable to compete with the big box stores. Even 18th Avenue is slowly dying.
Ugh, the modern age…
Sad to see this. My mom was a volunteer EMT and dispatcher with the Flushing Volunteer Ambulance Corps for many years, and their HQ was right there on 162nd Street. I used to buy vino at Leiser’s on my returns to Flushing to visit my family.
A walk down memory lane. Grew up on 163rd around the corner from Martin’s park. Have had a few drinks in each of the watering holes. Bridies is definitely missed. You practically have to go to Bayside to get a burger and a beer these days
I always spent my half an hour to read this webpage’s content everyday along with a mug of coffee.
Well, I just took a Google Earth tour of the one six two going from 46th south to Kissena Park and many of the original houses are still there and appear well kept up. Some Queens crap too but not a whole lot. The old houses are gorgeous, full of class and character. I imagine you had it made if you could afford to move into one of those just off the Park back in the day they were built.
The fish store used to be B&B Sporting Goods in the 1970′s It was originally 2 blocks up and across the street on the corner of Northern and 162nd. Lots of fishing gear purchased there.
What a shame. The area around 162nd and Northern was really the hub of all activity in North Flushing, at least in the fifties. It’s painful to see what it’s become. I have a picture that was taken of the Bridie’s site in 1956, with the Memorial Day Parade passing on it’s way to Flushing Cemetery. Bridie’s was, at the time, the Boulevard Luncheonette (otherwise known as “DJ’s”) the local teenage gathering place. Got my 75 cent haircut next to the Velvet Cup and pizza across the street at Salerno’s. Great baked goods at Claus Bakery further down the street. Sad.
The demographics in the Flushing-Broadway area have undergone huge changes over the past decade, from largely Caucasian to almost entirely Asian. Vitually every store along Northern Boulevard from the Flushing River through to roughly Utopia Parkway now bears signs in Chinese or Korean. As to the decline of 162nd Street, there was a lengthy construction project closing it to vehicular traffic on the crucial block between Northern and Sanford. So it could be that many of the businesses didn’t survive it,.
Guy R. Brewer Boulevard, n/e/e New York Boulevard, fills the slot of 162nd Street from Jamaica Avenue south several miles towards the vicinity of Rochdale Village. Many numbered streets in Queens are similarly under-represented. Ditmars Boulevard fills the role of 22nd Avenue through Astoria and into Jackson Heights. Lefferts Boulevard=119th Street. Eliot Avenue/Horace Harding Boulevard=61st Avenue. As a kid, I decided 6 is my lucky number and was very frustrated that 66th Avenue had a short run in Rego Park and Forest Hills, but completely disappeared through the Pomomok, Fresh Meadows, Oakland Gardens and Little Neck neighborhoods. A token piece was added in the 70s with the constuction of a townhouse development in Douglaston.
Wasn’t there a large factory/warehouse on 162nd, too, up until about a decade ago? I think the name began with an “A”?
It was called Anglers. Saw it for years, but have no idea what they made.
Thanks Laurie! I just checked online, and Anglers was – of all things – an office furniture/supplies company.
I lived on 164th Street between 43rd and 45th Aves in the mid ’80s. I recall that on 162nd Street there were at least three businesses named “Queen Bee____.” Seemed like a mini-dynasty. I guess they’re all gone now too?
I believe the laundry is still called Queen Bee, though the deli isn’t.
I still visit 162nd st for the liquor store but as kids (34 now) we used to go there all the time for the DJ’ing shop and the Sorrento deli (friend’s dad owned it). Even get groceries at Milk Barn Farms. My mom still goes to the antique shop now and again to sell some stuff. I was lucky enough to visit the Velvet Cup once for a drink, place was f’ing cool.
Still 2 pharmacies open on 162nd..Regal and Franconia
Stumbled many a night out of Popeye’s Pub(Nevin Bros FDNY owned it ) and across the street to the Queen Bee deli for a sandwich before I crawled back to my parents house. Weekend liberty was good in Flushing .
Grew up there. Remember it from the 50′s on, antique row, also wonderful bakeries, including our favorite Finocchio, hair salon, what we used to call a Chinese laundry on 45 th ave corner prior to Busy Bee, up until recently there was a remnant stained glass transom window there. Franconia Pharmacy named for the old name of 45 th Avenue, remember when the Anglers building was built, office supply, but can’t remember what was there before. Many private houses on the street at the time. Yes, awful construction has torn up the street at the tressel area twice during the last 2 years, killing businesses, the street impassible, no help for the businesses, months long closures. Fratelli Pizza still there, and Steve’s luncheonette. Remember when the Velvet Cup darkened it’s windows and became a topless bar, we were scandalized. Parades for holidays. A beautiful pet shop. An old fashioned Jewish owned clothing store. A fabric shop. There was also a church, don’t remember the denomination on the east side of the street, white and wooden. We would walk to Northern up 158th and then come around 162nd on the return trip. Two rival paint stores, Svend Kent on the corner still there, the other long gone by the Velvet Cup. My grandpa briefly owned the corner store, under the tressel, Big Eagle fruit and veg. It’s still a food store. 162nd was wonderful and one of the first places I was allowed as a child to walk to myself. Used to go that way to get to the McGoldrick library’s old location, where my sis worked as a teen.
i grew up on 161st right off of Sanford Ave…before the liquor store was the drug store..then u had the deli with Mike, Molly, and Pete…down further was the candy store with Ruth and her son Lester..i dont remember the husband and her other son…Broadway Supermarket…Milk Barn..I’m trying to go down the block…lol…Steve’s Coffee Shop..i worked there 1975…lol..across the street i remember Cheap Charlies…i loved that place…and going back down towards Sandford was Dominic Bakery …the Meat store…with Mike….oh back up the street Velvet Cup…we used to love trying to peek in the window…ahhhhhhh good ole 162nd street…Mom just moved from that neighborhood and may i say just in time…it now looks like a slum area…i go to Flushing once a week to take mom shopping we hit Bj’s and Pathmark…mostly …but every now and again we visit Andy at Steve’s Coffee shop…and it really is depressing…Regal Pharmacy just closed down recently…very Sad….but they can not take the great memories that street holds in my heart.
My brother and I used to consider BB’s and Sports World sacred shrines back in the late 60′s, when sports was all we lived for. Flushing offered all the rest when we moved on to a different kind of sporting life. Paddy Quinn’s ain’t dead yet. My band, Terminally Blue, just played a gig there on 7/21. A lot of the remaining Irish contingent came out that night and we all had a great time. Doing it again on 9/29 and looking forward to going back. Come on down & put some life back into a still trying spot. Maybe a 162nd Street reunion?
My house was right there!! See? Right there where Vic Kessler now has , had, (he’s passed) a sign shop. Think his brother runs it now. Can’t tell you how many times I’ve been up in that tree. That’s where I was when “the lights went out..”
My uncle Sal had a barber shop on the west side of 162nd street, 4-5 stores south of 45th Ave. Franconia Drug store was on the corner. I remember as I received my haircut hearing loud pounding coming from the nearby store. I believe it was the butcher shop originating the sounds as they tossed around heavy sections of the meat to prepare it for customers. I was a kid of 14 years (1951-52) and my brother and I would ride our bikes to get a haircut from Uncle Sal. Sal lived in the rear apartment where he and his wife Rose raised 2 daughters and a son.
I worked in ’63 and ’64 at Muller’s Boulevard Confectionary (ice cream parlor, candy making and lunceonette.)
On Northern Blvd. under the LIRR trestle was B&B Gun and Ammo, then heading west Sven-Kent paint store, a beauty salon, Muller’s at 161-20 (both stores became Bridie’s), a coin and stamp store, a laundromat, Woolworth’s, Halperin’s candy store and the New Republic Chinese Restaruant. It was a great block filled with nice people. The store owners looked out and helped out each other. It was the starting place of many a young person securing their first job. We probable learned more about life and dealing with people than earning a degree from an Ivy League business school.
This is a sad state of affairs but let’s hope the area makes a come back.
Yes, Denis, I hope so. I remember you working in Muller’s. I have some old photos of the area going back to the 1950s, when we were kids. With cars on the street dating from the 1930s with running boards. Remember when cars were made of steel? I recently got hacked, and I’ve started longing for rotary dial phones!
Hey,
Does anyone remember the arrests at the velvet cup that led the evening news one night? I think it was a mob thing?