FORMER ST. PETER’S A.M.E. CHURCH, Douglaston

Douglaston Hills is a small wedge of territory between Douglaston proper and Little Neck, defined by Douglaston Parkway, the Long Island Rail Road tracks, Northern Boulevard and Udall’s Cove Park. The neighborhood contains the historic Zion Church, whose cemetery contains the remains of colonial-era residents as well as area landowners such as the author/raconteur Bloodgood Cutter, who was an acquainatnce of Mark Twain.

Douglaston Hills’ shady streets are lined with well-kept homes dating to the late 19th and early 20th Centuries, and in some spots, original Belgian block pavement pokes through the asphalt. The neighborhood received a landmark designation by the city in 2004. Some years later, neighborhood residents successfully petitioned the city to have the numbered streets in the neighborhood returned to their original names — one of the few such reversals in Queens history.

Not everything in the neighborhood received Landmarks protection, though, and several blocks are still vulnerable to developers who can tear down houses and replace them with perhaps less esthetic or, in today’s case, historic structures.

The former St. Peter’s African Methodist Episcopal Church was located in a small, one-story building at a stub end of 243rd Street north of 42nd Avenue. It was a house of worship for much of the 20th Century, but is now a private dwelling.

The A.M.E. Church was co-founded in 1794 by former Delaware slave Richard Allen and gradually expanded worldwide. The largest A.M.E. church building in Queens is located on Union Street in the heart of Flushing.

10/10/14