MOSTLY BURNS STREET, FOREST HILLS

I was tipped off about a couple of items of interest in Forest Hills, so I thought I would take the R train over there. Because I was out of action as far as lengthy walks for a couple of years, there are a number of neighborhoods I haven’t roamed in for quite awhile. I have soft spot for Forest Hills, since I have seen a couple of key concerts at the West Side Tennis Club there: Elvis Costello (1982) and the Who, rather, The Two (2015). Thus, I braved the ungodly heat and humidity and plowed through. Surprisingly, in both cases, I found exactly what I was looking for. More on the Tennis Club later.

(LEFT) The Trylon and Perisphere loom over Horace Harding Boulevard (present site of the Long Island Expressway) in 1939. The Schaefer Beer exhibit (far left) and Virginia Pavilion (dome) also appear. from New York, Empire City 1920-1945, David Stravitz, Harry N. Abrams 2004

The Trylon and Perisphere were designed by the architectural firm of Harrison & Foulihoux and reflected the emphasis on purity embodied by industrial designers of the day. Ostensibly perfect forms, they were the only structures in the fair permitted to be painted pure white. The 700-foot Trylon and 200-foot Perisphere [actually 618 and 180 respectively—Ed.] were connected by a giant ramp called the Helicline, which led visitors back to the grounds once they had visited the structures. Fair-goers entered the interior of the Theme Center by riding a portion of the way up the Trylon in what was, at the time, the world’s largest escalator. From the Trylon visitors were directed into the Perisphere in order to view what [architectural expert] Stanley Applebaum calls “a planned urban and exurban complex of the future,” a diorama which filled the floor of the building, entitled Democracity.

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For years I had labored under the impression that the last great representation of the Trylon and Perisphere, the central attractions of the 1939-1940 NYC World’s Fair, were the mosaics in the ticket booth and lobby at the now-demolished Trylon Theatre on Queens Boulevard and 99th Street.

That was before FNY correspondent and Newtown Historical Society prez Christina Wilkinson spotted the Trylon and Perisphere, as well as the number 1939, on this building at 108th and Van Doren Streets in Corona, to the west of the fairgrounds.

Over the years, I found more Trylons and Perispheres (they’re always paired except they weren’t at the Trylon Theatre) at the entrance to the old Flushing Meadows Fairgrounds on the ramp leading to the #7 train, as well as at the White Mana Diner in Jersey City, which is where the diner was built before being moved to the Garden State.

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Well! It turns out there are more Trylons and Perispheres on earth, jabronie, than are dreamt of in my philosophy. Attached brick houses like these, with modest front gardens, are a staple of Queens residential housing in Rego Park, Glendale, and Forest Hills. But the developer of these buildings remembered the World’s Fair. He placed concrete carvings of the Trylon and Perisphere on the pediments above the entrances on at least two of the houses on 62nd Drive between 102nd Street and Yellowstone Boulevard! And those are the only two I saw; there may be more around here. I found more, elsewhere (see below)

I headed south on 102nd Street, where I found Stephen A. Halsey Junior High School (now an “intermediate” school). I found it interesting to find a tribute to Halsey here; he’s better known in the history books for his association with Astoria, whose pedigree dates to the mid-1600s, when William Hallett received a grant for the area surrounding what is now Hallett’s Cove by Peter Stuyvesant. However, the oldest structures in the region date to the mid-1800s, after fur merchant Stephen Ailing Halsey had incorporated the village in 1839.

Astoria was named for a man who apparently never set foot in it. A bitter battle for naming the village was finally named by supporters and friends of John Jacob Astor (1763-1848. Astor, entrepreneur and real estate tycoon, had become the wealthiest man in America by 1840 with a net worth of over $40 million. (As it turns out, Astor did live in “Astoria” — his summer home, built on what is now East 87th Street near York Avenue — from which he could see the new Long Island Village named for him.) After Halsey incorporated a village there in 1839, streets began to radiate east and south from the area, with fanciful dwellings constructed along them. Many have disappeared in the past few decades as developers place larger high-rises in the Village, which was never granted Landmarks protections.

A few years ago, I toured Ramones highlights in the iconic 1970s-1990s rock band’s highlights in their native Forest Hills. I have yet to write any items about this; at the time Forest Hills High was completely scaffolded and I wanted to get a better photo of it. On this hot day I didn’t feel like braving Forest Hills’ hills (that’s why they call it Forest Hills) to see about it today. However, I passed one of the two Birchwood Towers, on 102nd Street and 66th Road, true high rise apartment buildings. As youths, both Joey and Johnny Ramone lived in one tower or the other.

Joey’s thoughts on his upbringing here can be found in the song “Beat on the Brat” from their self-titled first album, via Scouting NY:

“[Forest Hills] was a middle-class neighborhood with a lot of rich, snooty women, who had horrible spoiled brat kids. There was a playground [at Birchwood, wedged between the buildings] with women sitting around and a kid screaming, a spoiled, horrible kid just running rampant with no discipline whatsoever. The kind of kid you just want to kill. You know, ‘beat on the brat with a baseball bat’ just came out. I just wanted to kill him.”

The Howard Apartments is a large high-rise co-op apartment complex located between 66th Road, 67th Avenue and 99th/Queens Boulevard and 102nd Streets in Forest Hills, though company literature says it’s in Rego Park. I was impressed by its identification signage, which is in a very old font used for over a century called Cheltenham (the NY Times uses variants of it in its headers).

I was on 67th Avenue because I knew it features a pedestrian bridge over the LIRR to get me to the street I wanted to see, Burns. (It is second in a group of alphabetized Forest Hills Streets that begins with Austin and ends with Olcott; there are also S, U and W streets that I’m not sure are poart of the grouping).

There is a row of charming attached brick homes on the north side of Burns between Thornton Place and 67th Avenue with brickwork arranged in letters that spell out “HOMES.” There’s also an A on one of them, but I don’t know what it signifies.

It took a little patience but I found my additional quarry on another group of attached brick homes on Burns Street between 67th avenue and Yellowstone Boulevard…another stone carving of the Trylon and Perisphere, this time on the brick chimney (I wonder if these houses have working fireplaces). Thus, these houses, here and on 62nd Drive, must have been built in the 1939-1940 area. 1940s NYC shows the 62nd Drive houses, but not the Burns Street.

I continued along Burns, as I found its attached brick Tudor and freestanding Tudor-style apartment houses interesting and attractive.

Burns Street passes alongside some additional historic structures including Forest Hills Stadium. These photos, on 69th Street betyween Burns and Dartmouth Streets, actually show the back of the stadium. I continue to be surprised at how sparsely-maintained the concrete stands seem to be. The stadium could use a cleaning and its terra cotta escutcheons could use sprucing up.

The Who (twice, nearly 50 years apart), the Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, Elvis Costello, Don Budge, Rod Laver, Billie Jean King and Jimmy Connors have all held court at Forest Hills Tennis Stadium. The U.S Open was held here for many decades before it decamped to Louis Armstrong Stadium (itself now demolished) in 1978 and later to Arthur Ashe Stadium in Flushing Meadows/Corona Park in 1997. The West Side Tennis Club was organized in 1892 and moved here in 1913 (the same year Ebbets Field in Brooklyn opened), with the U.S. Open moving in in 1923, when the stadium was constructed.

I have some interior photos on this FNY page composed in 2010, when the stadium was in danger of being razed. It’s out of danger now and hosts a summer concert series from spring to fall each year, with rock, hip hop and country for the most part. Concert noise, as you may think, has gotten the goat of some area residents.

The stadium is wholly within the semiprivate enclave of Forest Hills Gardens. I have hundreds of photos of FHG, but have yet to do a comprehensive page. However, I’ll direct you to this brochure, which covers the area comprehensively, and has a map of the area, which I had sought out for awhile.

FHG also goes very heavily on the Tudor, and the West Side Tennis Club itself is a massive example of the genre. This is the best I could do to get a photo of it, as I was in no mood to hassle with any of the local guardians there to bother people skulking with cameras. I’ve never had a problem, though, getting photos in the rest of the enclave.

The Forest Hills station is my favorite LIRR station in Queens, located at Station Square at Burns Street and Continental (71st) Avenue. The station was built in 1906, remodeled in 1911 and again in the 1990s, and features nonstandard lighting and signage, as well as shelters that complement the Grosvenor Atterbury stylings of the surrounding Gardens. Unfortunately Forest Hills and nearby Kew Gardens see only limited service, with most trains speeding past it.

Theodore Roosevelt spoke at the Forest Hills station on July 4, 1917 — the speech was filmed, but since sound could not yet be synched up to motion pictures, the sound was obviously not recorded. Roosevelt urged American participation in the ‘Great War’ in Europe and assailed conscientious objectors in the speech. His son, Quentin, would be killed in aerial combat in France just over a year after his father gave the speech here. Teddy never really recovered from this loss, and he passed away himself the following year.

When looking out at Forest Hills Gardens from the railroad platform, I’m reminded of the cult 1960s TV show The Prisoner, in which Patrick McGoohan (who was born in Astoria) plays a secret agent who is spirited off to a mysterious location, known as “The Village,” where village masters attempt to extract information from him by whatever means necessary. The show was filmed in the northern Welsh village of Portmeirion, built as one of the world’s first theme parks by Sir Clough Williams-Ellis in the 1920s. Images from Retroweb’s Prisoner page. 

The Forest Hills station’s lighting and signage are marvelously detailed, from the “dashing Dan” on the lamp to the stylized “FH” on the wrought iron signposts. Signage is in the handsome Goudy font.

For rail architecture buffs, the Forest Hills station is a destination in itself. The design is English tudor accented with red brick, red tile windows, casement-style windows and benches and platform lighting unique to the station. Some of these highlights were installed after a late-1990s renovation.

The renovations weren’t executed on the Forest Hills western platform extension, which has regulation LIRR lighting, fencing and signage.

Burns Street continues along the railroad on the north end of Forest Hills Gardens. This walkway connects the station platform with one of the buildings, but I presume the entrances are locked.

I have always been fascinated with FHG’s street lighting (naturally) which features a few wall brackets, but mostly freestanding posts with lantern-like fixtures that have held a variety of bulbs over the years including today’s LEDs. FHG also has unique street signage with raised lettering in the Optima font.

As I’ve said, I’ll have to amass info, but I have a large backlog of photos within the Gardens I’ll get to someday.

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8/11/24