I thought I was done with Walnut Street in Forest Hills. I really thought I was.
A few months ago [February 2014] I devoted a page to this one-block street between 70th Drive and 71st Avenue just north of Union Turnpike.
It’s a final remnant of a real-estate development called Forest Park Terrace. This 1909 map shows it running across the Long Island Rail Road south of Metropolitan Avenue. The green area at the bottom of the section is Forest Park. Union Turnpike had not yet been built this far east. Then, as now, Metropolitan Avenue is the main east-west drag. The railroad no longer has a junction, since the old Rockaway Branch tracks were torn up in the 1960s; and the mostly freight “Montauk branch” is now elevated here.
I was on a walk east on Union Turnpike from its Glendale origins east to Fresh Meadows when I spotted this unusual house on my left (title card). I had to investigate.
There it was, tucked against Walnut Street and 70th Drive, on the ridge separating it from Union Turnpike. A rare cobblestone house! I had only found a few of these in Queens, in Waldheim, in Bayside, and a church in Elmhurst, and I’m always happy to find another. They usually have stories behind them, and this building likely goes back to the old Forest Park Terrace days.
To add to Walnut Street’s other quirks, there’s a polka dot painted rock on the opposite corner.
5/8/14