JUNCTION Boulevard splits the heart of western Queens, dividing neighborhoods as it goes. It forms the undefended barrier between Jackson Heights and East Elmhurst north of Roosevelt Avenue at the #7 train, and south of that, it divides Elmhurst and Corona. It ends its run at Queens Boulevard at the vast Rego Park shopping center, where I always get a frozen yogurt at Red Mango if I’m in the area.
One of life’s great mysteries, at least for me, is the meaning of the name “Junction” Boulevard. The word seems to be most often used in references to railroads, at a place at which two or more rail routes converge or diverge. This implies a physical connection between the tracks of the two routes with which track the train runs under control by switches. I had thought the name referred to Junction Boulevard’s trolley or surface lines; however, as you can see on this Beers map from 1873 (Beers made splendid maps of Brooklyn, Queens and what became Nassau) there was already a Junction Avenue by that year.
I’m thinking the road is called “Junction” because it crosses no fewer than three railroads, only one of which is there today: the Flushing and Woodside RR (long gone), Flushing and North Side RR (now the Long Island Rail Road Port Washington branch) and the Newtown and Flushing RR, the “White Line” that branches from the Flushing & Northside to serve Corona. The road and the three rail lines were thought of as “junctions.” that’s my guess, anyway. Here are two atlas pages showing the gradual buildup in the area in 1909, though Jackson Heights, west of Junction Boulevard, remained stubbornly undeveloped until the Queens Corp. bought the acreage and built the landmarked apartments found there today; copy and paste the links into a new window to view.
Junction Boulevard begins at 32nd Avenues as 94th Street angles southeast and changes its name. At the Louis Armstrong Intermediate School 227 (formerly Junior High School 227), Junction and 32nd Avenue, you’ll find one of the handsomest building murals in Queens honoring the great jazzman, painted by Tim Payne in 2009. Though Satchmo will always be identified with New Orleans, he lived in Queens, in nearby Corona, for the final three decades of his life and is buried in Flushing Cemetery.
Armstrong purchased a small house on 34-56 107th Street in 1943 and the couple resided there until Louis’ death in 1971; his wife Lucille remained there until her death in 1983. Since then, the house was maintained, in turn, by the Louis Armstrong Educational Foundation, the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs and Queens College. After an over $1 million renovation, the house opened as a museum in 2003. Guided tours are offered: among the highlights are Satchmo’s 2nd floor den, with reels and reels of home recordings, unsent letters in response to fan mail and an original oil painting by Astoria native Tony Bennett. Elsewhere in the residence is a 1950s-era kitchen, all in turquoise, and a bathroom with gold-plated fixtures, each unchanged since the couple were in residence.
Junction Boulevard also begins at a former trolley line that still has remnants in place today.
I will be showing a number of sidewalk store signs that I find intriguing on this page. South of Northern Boulevard, here’s a tableau of a plastic-lettered laundromat sign and a storefront post office. I am fascinated with midblock neighborhood PO’s and may do a whole Forgotten NY page with that subject.
34th Avenue looking west from Junction Boulevard. A few years ago most vehicular traffic, except for local residents, was eliminated between 69th Street and Junction Boulevard as part of the Department of Transportation’s Open Streets initiative. In general, I disfavor permanent street closures, especially in areas with adequate playground coverage; in addition, Flushing Meadows-Corona Park is a short #7 train ride away.
In 2019 or 2020, I walked 34th Avenue’s Open Street’s length but have yet to use the photos. If you look at maps from the early 20th Century, the center median is in place already, though the section west of Junction Boulevard wasn’t built until Queensboro Corp. purchased the land.
In the distant past, long before I moved to Queens, Junction Boulevard had a makeover of sort that added brick crosswalks and red bricked sidewalks in spots. At 37-10 Junction was a GameStop video game store. The game giant ran into controversy in January 2021 as its stock price went temporarily high.
Jackson Heights-Corona’s handsome District Health Center, 34-33 Junction Boulevard, where residents can obtain health information and treatment, was built as part of Works Progress Administration improvements in the 1930s.
The building appears in this 1940 tax photo that also clearly shows Junction Boulevard’s North Beach Line, which ran along the boulevard and its own right of way to the now-vanished North Beach area and its amusement parks; see above link for info. North Beach was replaced in the 1930s by North Beach, now LaGuardia, Airport; its construction was inspired when Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia, on an out of town trip, balked at landing at the already existing Newark Airport because it wasn’t in New York State and the pilot diverted to Floyd Bennett Field instead. That field was inadequate for intercity and overseas air passenger service, and LaGuardia Airport opened in 1939.
The trolley line closed in August 1949, to be replaced by today’s Q72 bus.
Speaking of passenger service, here’s the express Junction Boulevard Flushing Line station at Roosevelt Avenue, opened in 1917. The hulking structure on the left is an elevator and pedestrian crossover.
The Junction Boulevard express station is relatively high as far as stations on the Flushing Line go (though not as high as Woodside-61st) and Flushing is glimpsable on the eastern horizon. The platform has minimalist LED lighting and unique iron sign stanchions. This station is a key transfer point when local service on either the east or westbound tracks is out, which is fairly frequent with trackwork.
For me, Junction Boulevard gets really Junctiony south of the Flushing Line, where it’s chockablock with small mom and pops and nook and cranny stores. No franchises found here. The name of this laundromat at 41st Avenue perplexed me, but all I had to do was look it up on the webs. The name should be rendered in two words, Baba Lokenath, a 19th century spiritual leader in the Hindu religion. Elmhurst and Corona feature Middle Eastern, Caribbean and Latin American populations among others, with the Flushing Line dubbed the “International Express.”
That retro etched-glass “Beauty School” sign at 41-20 Junction looks older than it is; it’s absent in this tax photo from the 1980s.
This supermarket between 42nd and 43rd Avenues has changed its name recently and gone from “The World” to “Big World” but the grand painted sign facing the lot next door is intact.
La Chinantla is a tiny village in the state of Veracruz in Mexico. Founded in 1977 as resettlement for native Mexican populations, the Chinantecs, displaced by the construction of the Malpaso Dam in Chiapas, Chinantla sits in the center of a jungle and one dirt road leads in and out.
This sign points to a Hindu center on 44th Avenue west of Junction Boulevard and I see both the sign and the temple as I am riding by on the LIRR frequently. Whoever produced the sign did a good job replicating the style the Department of Transportation uses for signage (though upper and lower case have now been used for over a decade).
Narrow 44th and 45th Avenues parallel the embankmented Long Island RR Port Washington Branch tracks between 94th and 111th Streets. As you may guess, when this was a surface line before the 1930s, 44th and 45th were called Railroad Avenue on each side of the tracks.
Another pair of interesting signs. Hernandez Grocery, at Alstyne Avenue, employs a Bembo-ish font even though it’s not eally Bembo, and that incredible laundromat sign at 47-26 is brand new as it wasn’t on Street View in 2022.
Though Corona’s Italian enclave is further east at Corona Avenue and 108th, anchored by Park side Restaurant and Lemon Ice King, Il Triangolo was the Italian stalwart at Junction Boulevard. The Gigliotti over the door refers to its original owner, Mario Gigliotti, who operated the restaurant before selling it in 2021 after it was closed for a time during the Pandemic. However, Il Triangolo is on the move, this time to Garden City.
I noticed a trio of portraits, or triptych, on the Triangolo wall on Junction Boulevard. They’re not new; Street View has them on its earliest scene, from 2007. Carlos Gardel (1890-1935) was a French-Argentine singer, songwriter, composer and actor who was a major figure in popularizing the tango around the world.
The center panel depicts the statue of the Virgin of Luján, Patroness of Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay:
The figure of Our Lady of Lujan is a small statue that has been venerated in Argentina since 1630. The tradition of the figure states that, in 1630, a rancher attempted to take the figure from Buenos Aires to his ranch in Santiago del Estero. The oxen who were pulling the wagon stopped inexplicably next to the Lujan River. The oxen would not move again until the figure was taken out of the wagon (despite unloading all other items from the wagon). After repeating this process and finding that the oxen would not move while the figure was in the wagon, the members of the wagon caravan decided this was a sign that the Virgin Mary wanted the statue to remain in Lujan. Archdiocese of Milwaukee
Third, General José de San Martín (1778-1850) is a national hero in Argentina, Chile and Peru, as he led wars of independence from Spain in those countries. Thus we can infer that this trio of portraits was installed by Argentine immigrants in Corona, as all three panels depict Argentine figures.
I got a head start with Junction Boulevard by featuring this trolley pole formerly supporting wiring for the North Shore streetcar line.
This mural on the side of the Corona Deli, Corona Avenue off Junction Boulevard, appeared within the last couple of years.
LeFrak City is a 4605-unit apartment complex located between Junction Boulevard and 99th Street on the north side of the Horace Harding (Long Island) Expressway in Corona constructed from 1962-1971 along the LIE which was then still fairly new by developer Samuel LeFrak (1918-2003) (which are, incidentally, the same years my father was born and died). It was built on land formerly coursed by Horse Brook, which has since been placed in the sewer system. Lefrak City has been home to basketball superstars Kenny Anderson and Kenny Smith, as well as pop composers and singers Ellie Greenwich and Jeff Barry. Samuel LeFrak was also involved in pop music: His recording and publishing company, The Entertainment Company, recorded and produced records by Dolly Parton, Diana Ross and Glen Campbell.
Barbara Jackson was a popular local politician, a Queens Democratic district leader and union official who died in 2021 and is remembered by a street sign at Junction Boulevard and 57th Avenue.
There are a pair of buildings in LeFrak City’s shadow I found interesting, the Silver Spoon Diner and the Corona-Elmhurst Post Office. The diner was founded by Greek immigrant John Raktizis in 1982 as the 3 Star Coffee shop in 1982 and was expanded to the Silver Spoon Diner in 1984. I have yet to try this now-40 year institution, but Yelpers rate it 3 stars.
Rego (Park) Center opened at Junction Boulevard between the Horace Harding and Queens Boulevard in 2010 on the former site of Alexander’s and is currently anchored by Costco. The 2010s and 2020s haven’t been kind to the Center, as Sears has now closed and Kohl’s and Ikea have come and gone, but fortunately for me, the Red Mango is still there.
Though I saw a couple of interesting items on Queens Boulevard en route to the subway, I’ll take are of those in future pages.
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3/10/24
8 comments
It’s not surprising that Rego Center lost its Sears as there are only *12* stores remaining in the whole country.
I grew up in Jackson Heights. The 34th Avenue median was removed around 1955, creating a haven for speeders. Then the median was restored 50 yrs later! Only in New York.
The Beers maps are great. This one of Newtown has my family’s farm on it, located between Winfield and Woodside.
My great-great-great grandfather purchased the farm in the mid-1850’s when he was impolitely ordered to leave Manhattan so the city could create Central Park.
My 3rd great-grandfather’s farm was in Newtown, Jesse Easton, who farmed there from 1840-1870. It appears on some property maps. His son, Jesse R. Easton, won the 1865 Queens Agricultural Fair at the old Fashion Course for best blood beets and best table carrots. My grandmother, Jessie Easton Walsh, would talk about them to her children, including my mom.
I know it serves an essential purpose, but that elevator and crossover on the #7 station looks very poorly designed.
Larry, not necessarily disagreeing, but I wonder if the designers were hamstrung by some need to avoid even *touching* any of the original structure, except where necessary to provide access? (Plus, of course, it is however many decades newer, so visually it stands out even more.)
I spent the first 6 years of my life at 91st just north of 32nd Av. I can recollect shopping with my grandmother on Junction. Love this piece.
Also grew up in Jackson Heights in the late 70s to 1989. I always remember the Louis Armstrong mural being there. And since when did NYC drop Junior High in favor of Intermediate School? Booooo,