I have shown the exterior of the Van Der Ende-Onderdonk House at Flushing and Onderdonk Avenues on the undefended Brooklyn and Queens boundary a number of times on FNY, so here’s a look at one of the inside rooms from a spring 2018 visit. This is one of the oldest houses in Queens: probably only the Quaker Meeting House and Bowne House in Flushing are older. The house is divided into two sections; the dormered part closer to Onderdonk Avenue has been dated to about 1710, with the smaller western section being added many decades later. It was likely built by Paulus van Der Ende and was owned by a succession of heirs until 1831, when it was purchased by Adrian Onderdonck; Onderdoncks occupied the house for over 100 years after that. According to the Ridgewood Historical Society, whose archives and offices are located here, the house has been used as a scrap glass factory, speakeasy, livery stable, greenhouse manufacturer, and most fascinatingly, a factory for spare parts of the Apollo space program. Old Paulus would have been flabbergasted if he could have known that.
The Onderdonk House (The “c” in the name has been dropped along the way) nearly burned down in 1975, and didn’t have heat until 1991. The Ridgewood Historical Society, established in 1975, brought the house back from probable demolition, and in 1977, the house and property were listed on the National Register of Historic Places and in 1978 was granted landmark status by the State of New York. Today, the Society offers guided house tours, history slide lectures, videotaped history programs, genealogy workshops, craft classes and special events, such as St. Nicholas Day and other Dutch celebrations. There is also a voluminous library with historical publications dealing with all of Queens, and preserved copies of newspapers dating from the mid-1800s to the present. While poking around in its quiet attic in March 2004 I found some logbooks from a local police precinct, likely untouched and unread since they were written in.
I’ve tried to interest them in a FNY 25th Anniversary presentation without success, but as I’m fond of saying, “there’s always forever.”
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11/26/24