JUST for fun, I dragged my H.G. Wells Time Machine out of the closet for another spin. It’s always tricky to travel into the past because the least little thing you do there can alter history into an infinite amount of unforeseen consequences that may include your never being born…so extreme care needs to be taken. The safest thing is to remain buckled in your seat and never stepping outside, and even then…
I set the controls for 1952 and traveled to 160th Street and 25th Drive in Whitestone, at a time when Whitestone As We Know it did not even exist. Though 160th Street is paved, cross streets such as 25th Drive were still gravel. Homes were still sparse and tall weeds lined both sides of the street. However, changes were afoot. There’s an advertisement for ranch homes that would soon be built and investors would be wise to jump in, as such plots would appreciate in value in the coming decades. Telephones and utilities had come to the region, and the poles that support the wires remain today. Just one streetlamp is in evidence, and even that was a dim incandescent bulb. The white Queens street signs would be used until 1964, when they were supplanted by white vinyl signs with blue letters; and then in 1984 by green street signs.
But in 1952? Nothing much going on here. Photo: Al Ponte’s Time Machine
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12/27/22
4 comments
Based on a current view, the tree behind the first pole seems to be doing well…albeit butchered as it grew into the overhead wires.
I remember well the small incandescent street lamps without globes, hanging on utility poles, which were common in Queens in the 1950s away from the major arterial streets such as (in this area) Northern Boulevard and Francis Lewis Boulevard. The white rectangular street signs did have large numbers and letters, so they were easy to read. A few had white numbers/letters on a blue background, but most were black on white as shown here. The LIRR Whitestone Branch had been abandoned for twenty years when this photo was taken, and ever since Whitestone denizens have had to rely to buses for mass transit. Had the old LIRR line been retained or connected to the #7 line, the land use in this area (which borders Flushing) might have been quite different than it became in the 1950s.
On the 1909 Bromley Atlas this area is marked as being a part of Broadway-Flushing. Rickett Findlay likely decided to sell that land due to the Depression. Later that area of southwest Whitestone/northeast Flushing was developed under the tract name of Flushing Manor, which is the name of the area’s elementary school, PS 184 located on 21st Rd just east of 163rd St.
Growing up in Whitestone in the ’50’s was like growing up in a small village. Many of the businesses (Frank the butcher and Dr. Cohen on 149th Street and Mike the barber on 150th Street, for example) were operated by folks who lived in Whitestone. If you did anything, either good or bad, there was a fair chance your mother would hear about it within a few days.