On yet another brilliantly sunny day (that did start out cloudy and drizzly) 20 ForgottenFans assembled at the 1st Presbyterian Church of Newtown as church publicist Marge Milliken recounted church history and toured the church, which dates to 1892 (but the congregation goes back to 1652). FNYers even got to ring the church bell!
This was an unusual tour as we noted not only still-standing structures, but also buildings and locales no longer there, such as the Moore family estate at 45th Avenue and Broadway– the progenitors of Clement Clarke Moore, the “The Night Before Christmas” author, as well as the spots were the Horse Brook flowed and the engines of the North Side & Flushing Railroad White Line ran. We saw Newtown’s oldest building, the 1734 St. James Church, and its weirdest, the Jamaica Savings Bank, which looks different from whatever angle you view it. We visited the Dutch Reformed Church, built in 1832, and its ancient churchyard, and the dead-end alley Claremont Terrace, where department store magnate Samuel Lord built four mansions for his four daughters. We finished with a look at Newtown High School, tied with Erasmus Hall High School in Brooklyn for the finest architecture in NYC high schools.
The postgame show was held at a FNY favorite, the Georgia Diner on Queens Boulevard.
Photo album — all photos by Robert Mulero and Joe DeMarco
9/25/13
2 comments
Thanks for posting this – Newtown HS class of 1979 – does not appear to have changed much in 34 years.
The photo of O’Connell Court was taken from in front of Justice Antonin Scalia’s parents’ home.