CONTINUED FROM JACKSON HEIGHTS/EAST ELMHURST PART 1
Name That Plane
Vaughn College of Aeronautics and Technology, between Ditmars Blvd., 23rd Avenue and 90th Street, has quite the little collection of planes parked in the back. There have to be some Forgotten Fans that can identify one or two. If you’re in the area, wander over if you ever want to see a parking lot for small planes. You’ll never get me up in one of these…
The last one’s a Piper Seneca…
Forgotten Fan Nelson identifies the first plane as a Cessna 150F and the second, a Cessna 150H.
East Elmhurst
Actually if you look at a map East Elmhurst is actually north of Elmhurst, but why quibble. In general, it stretches from Roosevelt Avenue north to LGA and from 90th Street east to 114th. According to the Encyclopedia of New York it was developed in 1905 as a “neighborhood of frame houses”. Like Elmhurst it contains a series of alphabetized street names: Butler, Curtis, Ericsson, Gillmore, Humphreys, McIntosh, and Kearney (A, B, F, J, L are skipped and K is out of place). It’s one of the few real African-American enclaves in northern Queens west of Flushing Meadows-Corona Park. Willie Mays, Ella Fitzgerald and Malcolm X have lived here.
When built these eclectically styled homes on Ditmars Blvd. near 25th Avenue were on a bluff that must have had impressive views of Flushing Bay and College Point beyond from the back porch, but these days, they overlook the Grand Central Parkway and LGA.
The East Elmhurst branch of Queens Public Library is architecturally nothing to write home about, but it contains Louis Armstrong’s personal papers. Satchmo lived on 107th Street north of 37th Avenue in what’s officially Corona.
Driving down 94th Street from LGA, you can’t miss Gran Rancho Jubilee at 24th Avenue. The thatch-topped restaurant brings Dominican food and culture to East Elmhurst; there’s a multi-level dining room, four cocktail bars, and catering for private parties. A large screen television shows sports for an enthusiastic crowd and there is live entertainment, featuring Dominican singers and Mexican mariachi bands, each week. Queens Gazette
The city has recently spiffed up the walkway along Flushing Bay between 27th Avenue to just past Shea Stadium, that includes animal and plant bas reliefs on the railings. Now, they cheated when they got to “X”…they used “oxen” and “oxalis.” Help me out here…there has to be an x animal and x plant!
There’s still a way to go. In photo left, sewage is running straight into Flushing Bay. Good thing Smell-O-Vision hasn’t replaced television (besides, Carl Stalling says it’ll never work!). At right, the view is of industrial College Point Boulevard. Once the walkway gets past Shea, you have to thread your way through traffic onto the Northern Boulevard bridge to get to Flushing.
The World’s Fair Marina is named for the 1964-65 World’s Fair that took place just to the south in Flushing Meadows-Corona Park (the Fair Theatre we’ve seen before was named for its 1939-40 predecessor). It has a restaurant and yacht docking. While there I noticed this fine gilded fellow. Who is he? Priapus, perhaps?
Page photographed in September and October 2005 and April 2006.
©2006 Midnight Fish