MANY Corona and Flushing residents, across the mighty Flushing River from each other, believe Willets Point is located just west of the river, where Citifield is. After all, that’s what the #7 train identifies the station there as, and about a football field’s length south in Flushing Meadows-Corona Park, the LIRR station, (thankfully) now open year round, is called Mets-Willets Point. In fact, the real Willets Point is several miles northeast in Fort Totten, where in the 19th Century, the US government purchased acreage from the Willets family to fortify NY Harbor against attackers, whether foreign or domestic.
Why the confusion, then? This road. Willets Point Boulevard now exists in two pieces, a few blocks connecting Roosevelt Avenue and 126th Street (Seaver Way) to Northern Boulevard, and the lengthier section, in Whitestone, which leads to the fort and Cross Island Parkway. Long ago, original plans called for the two pieces to span across the Flushing River, but the bridge was never built and the “orphaned” piece shown here in July 1937, gave its name to the general area…a false Willets Point of sorts.
While Willets Point ran through grassland in 1937, it evolved over time into the Iron Triangle, a collection of car repair, auto parts stores and other larger businesses, including waste facilities and warehouses and even a spice wholesaler at one point. I have called it the “neighborhood the city hates” as Willets Point Boulevard hasn’t been repaved in decades and sewers were never installed, as the city tried not so gentle persuasion to oust the repair joints. Today, about half are gone, mostly in the southern section: indeed, Willets Point Boulevard is closed to traffic for about half its length now.
If NYC, Major League Soccer, and the Queens Borough President get their way, the Iron Triangle will be now more by 2027-2030 as a new soccer stadium…NYC’s first stadium dedicated to soccer…as well as several housing projects with both “affordable” and unaffordable apartments will rise along WPB, which I presume will have sewers installed.
But the Iron Triangle has held on tight for decades, and I wouldn’t count it out.
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3/7/24