Forgotten New York is in Association with the Greater Astoria Historical Society, a non-profit organization supported by the Long Island City community.
By now you are aware that I am a milestone maven, eagerly seeking out the mile markers placed in the colonial and postcolonial eras along major roads. In early 2013 I found out about the Post Road 12-mile marker embedded in the stone fence at Isham Park, I found the 3 and 5-mile markers along [...]
Bayside Avenue in Queens is nowhere near Bayside, the neighborhood. Instead it runs between Union Street and the intersection of 154th Street and 29th Avenue in Flushing. In what is something of a feature in NYC nomenclature, the road is named for the neighborhood or town toward which it points (cf. Flushing Avenue, which isn’t [...]
I have always been fascinated by streets that dramatically change character from one end to the other, as well as change their level of traffic. There are a number of streets in NYC that start with just a trickle of traffic and build and build to a heavy volume, such as Staten Island’s Hylan Boulevard, [...]
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, [...]
Categorized in: Forgotten Slices Tagged with: Flushing Queens
Categorized in: Street Scenes Tagged with: Auburndale Flushing Fresh Meadows Queens
I was meandering around the section of Flushing in which the streets are named for plants in alphabetical order from A to R. On Quince Avenue I found this compelling small cottage with a French Second-Empire style mansard roof. This is likely a recent renovation, but unusually for Queens (and I hate to sound condescending [...]
I’ve been asked to cover three locales selected by Partners in Preservation, an organization sponsored by American Express that, in a partnership with the National Trust for Historic Preservation, awards preservation grants to historic locales across the country. After six years in existence, Partners in Preservation has selected New York as its focus in 2012. Through the partnership, [...]
Categorized in: Street Scenes Tagged with: Flushing Queens
On a cloudy afternoon in March I took a bus to my old neighborhood at Sanford Avenue and 158th Street and walked through the area unofficially known as Boadway-Flushing as far as Bell Boulevard in Bayside. Though the area is nowhere near Queens’ Broadway, which runs from Long Island City to Elmhurst, the stretch of [...]
Categorized in: Walks Tagged with: Auburndale Bayside Flushing
Throughout most of Shea Stadium’s existence (except for the last couple of years, when Citifield was being constructed) a large, four-sided clock tower was visible beyond the left-field fence with a flashing neon sign. This was the Serval Zipper Factory, for the past few years a U-Haul distributorship. The clocks, of course, stopped long ago. [...]
Though the official name of the station is Willets Point Boulevard (for the LIRR, it’s Mets-Willets Point) Shea Stadium lives on in leftover 1964-era signage. Shea Stadium, of course, was torn down after the 2008 season. The stadium was originally named for attorney William Shea, who championed a new New York City NL team after [...]
In July 2011 I crawled through the postmodern wasteland of modern Flushing, a land increasingly scattered with empty lots testimony to the golden dreams of the go-go 2000s and a mayoral initiative of 9 million New Yorkers by 2011, and signs peppered with broken English that you are not sure were written by recent high school/college [...]
Categorized in: Forgotten Slices Tagged with: Flushing Queens
CONTINUED FROM PART 1 Continuing south on Cross Island Parkway, the roadway briefly sneaks into Nassau County, and then straightens south of Belmont Racetrack, neatly delineating the Queens-Nassau border. The highway then splits into the eastbound Southern State Parkway and westbound Belt Parkway. The Laurelton segment of Belt Parkway between exits 23 and 25 has [...]
Categorized in: You'd Never Believe You're in NYC Tagged with: Bayside Flushing Laurelton Little Neck Queens Rosedale St. Albans
BY SERGEY KADINSKY Forgotten NY contributor Queens is a borough containing many streams. It has numerous creeks, basins, inlets, bays, and rivers. Deeper inland are a few ponds, remnants of the last ice age, a respite from the chaotic urban development that surrounds them. The eastern half of Queens in particular still has ponds, tucked [...]
Categorized in: You'd Never Believe You're in NYC Tagged with: Bayside Flushing Laurelton Little Neck Queens Rosedale St. Albans
As I had written on an early Forgotten New York page in 2000, NYC has a Main Street in all five boroughs: Manhattan (Roosevelt Island), Brooklyn (DUMBO), The Bronx (Edgewater Village), Staten Island (Tottenville) and Queens, in Flushing and Kew Gardens Hills. Though none of NYC’s Main Streets are renowned in history or show business, [...]
Categorized in: Neighborhoods Roads Street Scenes Walks Tagged with: Briarwood Flushing Kew Gardens Main Street Queens
In the evening of September 16, 2010, a large storm front swept through the general NYC area with high winds and heavy rain and the storm was strong enough to produce two tornadoes, one of which struck mid-Brooklyn, the other mid-Queens including Forest Hills and Flushing, leaving toppled trees in its wake. The storm also left structural [...]
Categorized in: Forgotten Slices Tagged with: churches Flushing Queens
I resided in fab Flushing between 1993 and 2007, and during that time both on foot and by bike, familiarized myself with the older routes through the area including the maze of roads that used to delineate Rocky Hill Road, as well as the bicycle and jogging path that now follows the route of the Motor Parkway built as [...]
Categorized in: Roads Tagged with: Auburndale Flushing Fresh Meadows Queens
CONTINUED FROM PART 1 The Franny Lew As the roadbed of 47th Avenue, Rocky Hill Road crosses Francis Lewis Boulevard, the lengthiest road contained completely in Queens, stretching generally north to south from Whitestone to Rosedale. The oldest part of the road is in Whitestone and carried the name Whitestone Road when first laid out around 1900. [...]
In a borough that ruthlessly changed most of its street names to numbers beginning in the 1910s (beginning in Woodhaven, actually) there are, interestingly, still pockets of streets named in alphabetical order scattered throughout. There’s Elmhurst (Aske through Macnish); East Elmhurst (Butler through Humphreys); Rego Park (Asquith Crescent through Fitchett Street); Forest Hills (Austin through [...]
Categorized in: Neighborhoods Street Scenes Tagged with: Flushing Queens
The interesting thing is, Linden Place begins extraordinarily promisingly — as you begin at Northern Boulevard, you find yourself at several centuries-old landmarks that have somehow, somehow survived in Flushing despite its relentless overurbanization over the decades. The moment you start walking north on Linden Place, though, you quickly find yourself in what can alternately [...]
Categorized in: Neighborhoods Street Scenes Tagged with: Flushing Queens
Having moved to Flushing in 1993 I have witnessed, to my continuing disgust, the demolition of what was formerly Flushing’s great east-west residential thoroughfare, Sanford Avenue; year by year, more and more of its charming 19th and early 20th Century structures falls victim to overdevelopers’ relentless thirst for multi-family dwellings that, since they’re built on the [...]
Categorized in: Forgotten Slices Tagged with: Flushing Queens
Categorized in: Neighborhoods Roads Street Scenes Walks Tagged with: Flushing Queens
If you’ve never been to the Broadway-Flushing section of Queens, it’s worth a visit — it’s home to some of Queens’ finest architecture, having been part of the Rickert-Finley real estate development around the turn of the 20th Century. Large plots, wide lawns, and beautiful, eclectic buildings. I’ll have a proper Foergottenpage on it soon enough [...]
Categorized in: Forgotten Slices Tagged with: Flushing Queens
BY SERGEY KADINSKY Forgotten NY contributor The origin of the Flushing River predates the Pleistocene Ice Age, when the Hudson River flowed into the Atlantic Ocean using the Harlem River and Flushing River streambeds. For thousands of years, the line between the planet’s northern ice cap and terra [...]
Categorized in: Street Scenes Tagged with: Flushing Queens rivers
Everyone at Shea Stadium on September 28, 2008, except members of the Florida Marlins — over 55,000 people — were hoping that the date would not mark the final game at Shea Stadium of Flushing Meadows, Queens. The Marlins, however, prevailed 4-2, ending hopes for any more post-season baseball at the 45-year old bucket of [...]
Categorized in: Street Scenes Tagged with: Flushing Queens stadiums
You might think San Francisco and Flushing have absolutely nothing in common, but they do share something. Way over in the extreme western end of Flushing, between College Point Boulevard, the Van Wyck Expressway, the Long Island Railroad and the Kissena Park Corridor, there’s a cluster of small streets unnoticed except by their residents and the people [...]
Categorized in: Neighborhoods Out of Town Tagged with: Flushing Queens
BY ALEXIS BUISSON Guest FNY columnist Describing the “Iron Triangle” other than “a place you would never go to otherwise than compelled to do so” would not be an overstatement. This small, smelly and noisy triangular neighborhood in Queens is home to warehouses, car repair and auto parts stores, and, they say, only one resident. In [...]
Categorized in: Neighborhoods Tagged with: Corona Flushing Iron Triangle Queens
In September 2007 FNY, on the Lullaby of Broadway Slice, chronicled the impending demolition and restoration of the Broadway (Flushing) Long Island Rail Road station. Between 1993 (preceding that actually) and 2007, the MTA had allowed the station to become a horror show of crumbling platforms and fences as well as urine-soaked waiting sheds. Things got so bad [...]
Categorized in: Forgotten Slices Subways & Trains Tagged with: Flushing Queens
When I moved to Flushing in 1993, Martin’s Field, 46th Avenue and 164th-165th Streets, was just another playground: a desultory concrete space, with broken swings and a curious weedy green space in the back. I had no idea then that Martin’s Field was in fact a cemetery, and it took one man’s persistence and vision [...]
Categorized in: Cemeteries Tagged with: Flushing Queens
Equal parts playground and wilderness, Kissena Park is bordered by Oak Avenue, Kissena Boulevard, 164th Street, and Booth Memorial Avenue (referred to rather comically on the Parks Department website as “Hemstead Turnpike”; the avenue hasn’t been called North Hempstead Turnpike for over 50 years!). Like Waters I have often repaired to my park for surcease from the [...]
Categorized in: Neighborhoods Tagged with: Flushing Kissena Park Queens
Disregarding the arrests of Yovanni “NyQuil” Rivera and Marcos Polanco, who went on a violent mugging spree in the fall and winter of 2006-07, and ignoring the story about the five homeless men who robbed, beat and raped a woman in the park in 2002 — your webmaster has been a frequent hiker in Flushing Meadows Corona Park, taking in [...]
Categorized in: Street Scenes Tagged with: Corona Flushing Parks Queens
Whenever I lead a ForgottenTour through a cemetery (like Green-Wood Cemetery, Tour 24) I always tell people to peek in the windows of the mausolea. More often than not, you’ll get the ring in the Cracker Jack box — a gorgeous stained-glass panel depicting a religious scene…most of the time, but not always. The fascinating [...]
Categorized in: Cemeteries Tagged with: Flushing Queens
A road runs from the East River to the tip of the North Fork of Long Island, running through Long Island City, Woodside, Jackson Heights, Flushing, Auburndale, Bayside, Douglaston, Little Neck, Great Neck, Munsey Park, Port Washington, Muttontown, East Norwich, Oyster Bay Cove, Cold Spring Harbor, Huntington, Northport, Smithtown, Stony Brook, St. James, Port Jefferson, Rocky [...]
Categorized in: Street Scenes Tagged with: Flushing Queens
It’s hard to say why, but the definitive history of Flushing has yet to be written. Plenty has been written about Flushing’s rich past centuries ago, with its struggles over religious freedom in its very early days. But very little has been said of what Forgotten NY considers to be the rape of Flushing…the wholesale [...]
Categorized in: Neighborhoods Street Scenes Tagged with: Flushing Queens
The only thing worse than irrelevance is being perceived to be irrelevant. People, places and institutions can be riding high in April and shot down in May, or, in a wonderful phrase Robyn Hitchcock snuck onto one of his albums, one day, they’re a “number in a drawer.” There’s a little enclave in Queens full of beautiful buildings [...]
Categorized in: Neighborhoods Tagged with: Flushing Queens Waldheim
Editor: Kevin Walsh Photographer and writer, except where noted: Christina Wilkinson The Benjamin Rosenthal Library at Queens College features a distinctive clock tower. Walt Whitman taught school on what would later be the Queens College campus. “Paumanok” was a word used by the Algonquin tribe to describe Long Island. The exact meaning is unclear, although William Wallace Tooker, a 19th-century [...]
Categorized in: Neighborhoods Tagged with: Flushing Paumanok Pomonok Queens
Forgotten Fans at Kingsland Manor I’M NOT certain if I have ever made peace with living in Flushing. I moved here in 1993, to be closer to a long-gone job, and there always seems to be somewhere I’d rather be. Bay Ridge, where I came from, perhaps. Hoboken. Sunnyside Gardens. Bayside. Riverdale (where I turned down [...]
Categorized in: Neighborhoods Tours Tagged with: Flushing Queens
IT WAS A DAY with air so crisp, it almost broke off in your fingers. And there is no better weather than to explore the 1939 and 1964 World’s Fair remnants at vast Flushing Meadows-Corona Park on a day between the snowstorms. 40 Forgotten Fans had the same idea. Where’s Walsho? Alone at the Fair, awaiting Forgotteners. Photo: [...]
Categorized in: Tours Tagged with: Flushing Flushing Meadows Queens
Before poured concrete became the de rigueur material for New York City sidewalks, they boasted unique slate bluestone plates that made a distinct hollow noise when trod upon. Older parts of town can still be recognized, in part, by the presence of such distinct and handsome bluestone slate sidewalks, as we’ll see on this page… [...]
Categorized in: Cobblestones Tagged with: Astoria Brooklyn Brooklyn Heights Carroll Gardens Flushing Maspeth Queens
The Port Washington Branch of the Long Island Railroad, your webmaster’s home railroad line, is a line capable of the finest the LIRR can offer and its very worst, with brand spanking new and restored station houses with all the amenities, and the highest railroad bridge on the Island. In 2002, I surveyed the line and [...]
Categorized in: Subways & Trains Tagged with: Corona Elmhurst Flushing Woodside
Imagine boarding the Long Island Railroad at Penn Station or Woodside and traveling east on the Port Washington Branch. After leaving the Shea Stadium platform, the train does notgo east past Main Street, Murray Hill, Broadway and the other stations of the branch, but rather veers northeast along the Flushing River; northwest near the old Flushing Airport; [...]
Categorized in: Subways & Trains Tagged with: abandoned rail routes College Point Flushing Long Island RR Queens Whitestone
Though Your Webmaster has resided in Flushing since 1993, I hadn’t yet taken advantage of its many historical dwellings and locales, many of which are unknown by Flushing’s thousands of residents. On a hot, humid June afternoon, a couple dozen Forgotten Fans and I decided to remedy the situation… No, this is not the next batch of “Survivor” [...]
Categorized in: Neighborhoods Tours Tagged with: Flushing Queens
In the past few months (as of this writing, April 2000) the Long Island Rail Road (or, as some call it, the Long Island Fail Road) has completely replaced its fleet of ancient cars going back to the mid-1950s with a modern, bright fleet of bi-level cars. While many railfans (including me) welcome the new [...]
Categorized in: Subways & Trains Tagged with: Auburndale Flushing Queens Richmond Hill
Continued from Part 1 This time, our survey of little-noticed Queens alleyways takes us from gritty, concrete-enveloped Long Island City all the way east to bucolic, rural Little Neck–which could pass for an upstate village or a small North Shore town, which, of course, it is! So let’s start in Long Island City and work [...]
Categorized in: Alleys Neighborhoods Tagged with: Astoria Boker Briarwood Charlotte College Point Cornell Corona Elmhurst Flushing Forest Hills Glendale Hawtree Linneaus Little Neck Queens Ridgewood South Jamaica Sunnyside Whitestone
Queens, in many ways, is the youngest of the five boroughs. It became a part of the city when its widely separated towns joined with the Bronx, Brooklyn, Staten Island and Manhattan in 1898 to become the five boroughs. Part of Queens, though, wanted nothing to do with New York City and so the Queens [...]
Categorized in: Alleys Tagged with: Astoria Briarwood College Point Corona Elmhurst Flushing Forest Hills Glendale Little Neck Queens Ridgewood South Jamaica Sunnyside Whitestone
Flushing Airport, the former Queens private aircraft facility, hasn’t seen a landing or takeoff in many years. It’s not even in Flushing. Along with the Whitestone Expressway, it’s the chief reason for College Point’s isolation from the rest of Queens, because of its location south of 20th Avenue and west of the Whitestone Expressway. These [...]
Categorized in: Street Scenes Tagged with: College Point Flushing Queens
Lamppost design of yore can be seen in surviving original walkway lampposts that carry pedestrian traffic across busy highways such as the Long Island Expressway and Brooklyn-Queens Expressway. Many carry their original “cup” diffusers although several have been given the bucket sodium lamps that began appearing in the 1970s. LEFT, CENTER: Oddly, the dignified walkway [...]
Categorized in: Street Lamps Tagged with: Bronx Brooklyn Carroll Gardens Flushing Queens Riverdale Staten Island
Here we present some old designs that don’t easily fit the above categories, including the remains of the last gaslight-era lamp left standing. LEFT: This unprepossessing little pole, at the corner of Broadway and West 211th Street in Inwood in Manhattan represents a last dinosaur. Of the thousands of gaslamps that once populated [...]
Categorized in: Street Lamps Tagged with: Bronx Flushing Inwood Manhattan Queens Throgs Neck
