WHEN I lived in eastern Flushing from 1993-2007, I didn’t recognize this structure on the Flushing-Auburndale border at Northern Boulevard and 165th Street for the artifact it was. At the time, it hosted an oncological imaging center, and today, it is home to a beauty parlor, a ginseng dispensary, and a rent-a-car center. But it was formerly an icon…
…a Howard Johnson’s restaurant. This was just one of an empire that boasted 1000 restaurants spread out countrywide, expanding from a single location built by Howard Deering Johnson (1897-1972) in 1925 in Quincy, Massachusetts. After building a substantial restaurant empire, Johnson got into the hotel business, opening a motor lounge in 1954 in Savannah, Georgia.
In the 1980s, the empire began to falter and the restaurants and lodges began to shutter, though the one located in the belly of the beast, in Times Square, hung in until 2005. I have photos on this solid gold FNY page from 2006. I never patronized a Howard Johnson, though I remember a few things. Our butcher, on 86th Street in Bay Ridge, had a freezer case full of tubs of Howard Johnson ice cream and sherbet, and I was allowed to pick out the flavor we would be eating for dessert that week. As a matter of fact, Howard Johnson (I never heard it referred to as “Hojo”) had an entire line of frozen food and I recall a radio commercial for them sung by none other than Joey Levine, of “Yummy Yummy Yummy” and “Chewy Chewy” fame. Thirdly, Mad Men‘s Don Draper and his second wife Megan got into a rip roaring argument at an orange-roofed Howard Johnson at Lake Placid upstate (she didn’t finish her huge dish of orange sherbet). That Lake Placid location was actually the last one to close, in 2022, though the Howard Johnson name can still be found on hotels operated by Wyndham.
Above, we see the Howard Johnson in 1940. Its roof turret is still intact and the Spanish Colonial design can still be detected. This location had a sidewalk lamp as many banks once did to deter overnight robberies.
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9/25/24
19 comments
Carol Burnett loved the fried clams at the Times Sq. Howard Johnsons
I used to LOVE the fried clam sandwich (clamwich??) with fries at the HJ across from the Wanamakers at the Cross County Mall in Yonkers.
The very large Howard Johnson’s restaurant in Rego Park/Forest Hills on Queens Boulevard was our “fancy” spot in the early 1970’s just before tit closed. Opened for the 1939-1940 Worlds Fair, the restaurant had seen much better days than when our crowd would descend on it after working all day Saturday at S. Klein’s in Flushing. It was step up from the regular bar and tavern haunts. Both the girls and guys would experiment with such exotic drinks as Grasshoppers or Mudslides. Such sophisticated drinks were not to be found in the usual beer joints.
Famous chef Jacques Pepin was employed at Howard Johnson’s in the 1960’s.
He was what is now referred to as an executive chef.
Besides the Flushing/ Auburndale and Forest Hills/Rego Park locations noted in this posting, there was a third Howard Johnson restaurant in Queens. It was on the Douglaston/Little Neck border at Northern Boulevard and 247th Street. A BMW dealer now occupies the site.
The last Howard Johnson restaurant to close was in Lake George. Close, but no cigar!!! :). It’s an Asian Fusion restaurant now.
Growing up in Forest Hills, the closest Howard Johnson’s was right on Queens Blvd in Rego Park. It was a large building with the signature orange roof and had a beautiful staircase that went up to a banquet hall. On the walls leading up to the hall was a huge mural. To the left, as you walked in, was the counter service and to the right was the dining area.
They always had a unique children’s menu; one that I remember was shaped like an over-sized cap, that could actually be placed on your head. The children’s dinners were named after nursery rhyme characters, such as Jack & Jill and Little Miss Muffet.
In later years, they had an “all you can eat” fish or chicken night and waitresses would walk around with carts refilling your dish, if you so desired. It was a really nice place.
I’m glad to see that the Enterprise car rental franchise remains at the same location as when I lived in Queens. With the nationwide crime rate surging Grand Theft Auto has become a way of life for many. As owners wait for their final settlement with their insurers Enterprise can be counted on to fill the transportation gap. Too bad blue state sanctuary cities refuse to return to the “broken windows” law enforcement paradigm.
Yes, auto theft has greatly risen during the past few years, which is not good. However, it is not a “Blue State vs. Red State vs. Purple State” issue. The problem is broadly across the country.
So, KB, what’s your solution, pray tell? Please, try hard not to shriek when I state that secure borders with actual physical barriers, & strict enforcement would lead to a better quality of life for American citizens.
Kenneth B: beware, you’re talking to a dual citizen. He can fondly remember places from his youth and instruct us how great they were, benefit from that, and laugh in our faces for still living in the places he once “loved.” Nasty piece of work.
This seems to explain your ridiculous comment:
https://nypost.com/2024/09/27/opinion/to-democrats-democracy-means-rule-by-them/
The “nationwide crime rate” is NOT surging, according to the FBI:
https://www.fbi.gov/news/press-releases/fbi-releases-2023-crime-in-the-nation-statistics
…although yes, vehicular theft IS one area that has jumped… by 12+% (YIKES!) I wonder how much of that was, er, driven by all those Kias/Hyundais with the “Steal Me” ignition systems? Anyway, agreed, the “broken windows” approach sure seemed to pay dividends overall in a place like the City. OTOH very few other planks in the “blue state / red state” dichotomy survive even the merest of scrutiny.
Howard Johnson hotels were often built in out-of-the-way locations, such as near circumferential freeways, o the point where Mad Magazine could do a gag in a spoof of movies where the characters are hopelessly lost in the wilderness– “We’re several hours away from civilization and a good two hours away from the nearest Howard Johnson motel!”
Andy:I remember the H-J on Northern Blvd. and 247th st. back in the 1960s.That
one was at the edge of a wilderness called Alley Pond.What a weird place to have
a restaurant.
True, this particular HoJo was on the east edge of Alley Pond Park and it’s true that Northern Boulevard going through Alley Pond Park was somewhat undeveloped because of wetlands there. But the area was hardly a wilderness. A mile to the west, Bayside was heavily built up by the 1940s, and to the east areas along Northern Boulevard in Little Neck and Great Neck were also fairly built up by World War II.
I lived in this area between 1951 and 1970, when it experienced more growth. This was not a weird place for a restaurant. Northern Boulevard provided a steady stream of car traffic passing this HoJo so this restaurant was normally pretty busy till the 1970s when the chain began its decline.
I have never been to a Howard Johnson’s restaurant, so I will never what they were like.
Permit me to nit-pick. I think cupola would be a better description of that thing on the roof. After all that building is not a fortress.
The cupola was also topped off with a weathervane featuring an outline of Simple Simon and the Pieman. I remember going to the large restaurant on Queens Boulevard for dinner after a day at Fairyland. Restaurants were also strung along rest areas on the Pennsylvania Turnpike and other toll roads.