INVICTUS TRIANGLE

JAMAICA Estates, built on the northern edge of the former Town of Jamaica in the 1905-1907 period, occupies about 500 acres between Homelawn Street, Hillside Avenue, 188th Street and Union Turnpike. In the 1930s, it was neatly cut into two sections by the construction of the Grand Central Parkway right through it. When construction, consisting initially of Tudor-style homes on large plots (as large as 60’x105′), began Jamaica Estates was surrounded by open farms and fields, dotted by small towns and connected by wagon and farm-to-market roads, many of which developed into the pedal-to-the-metal boulevards we know today.

The project was conceived by former NYS lieutenant governor Timothy Woodruff and railroad builder Michael Degnon, who, among many other projects, constructed the Steinway Tunnels which today connect the #7 train with Manhattan and Queens. In Forgotten NY, Degnon is a familiar figure, mentioned on my Queens railroad spurs page; and, don’t miss Sam Berliner’s exhaustively comprehensive page on Sunnyside’s Degnon Terminal. Degnon is in repose at Calvary Cemetery. 

Unlike the rough grid system that dominates much of Queens, Jamaica Estates was laid out with winding streets that swoop in and out, for leisurely carriage rides. This means that there are a number of angled intersections. I discuss one of them today, on Charlecote Ridge and Henley Road. In the title picture , it’s one of the smallest traffic “triangles” in the city, and there are even smaller ones in Jamaica Estates.

Its name, Invictus Triangle, can be puzzling to those who haven’t studied poetry (I hadn’t, before researching this page). For example the first thing that came to my mind was the 1970s label, Invictus Records, created by the Motown producing/songwriting/singing team, Brian Holland, Lamont Dozier and Edward Holland. Though it was short-lived the label scored big hits heard today on oldies radio like “Band of Gold” (Freda Payne) and “Give Me Just A Little More Time” (Chairmen of the Board).

Invictus, Latin for “undefeated,” is the name of a famed and much-quoted poem:

Out of the night that covers me
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance,
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate
I am the captain of my soul.

The phrases “Bloody, but unbowed” and “Captain of my soul” have become common parlance.

The poem was written by author/playwright/editor/poet William Ernest Henley, while he was recovering from a severe bout of tuberculosis which cost him an amputated leg. When Jamaica Estates was planned by Timothy Woodruff and Michael Degnon it was common practice to give residential neighborhoods British place names to add an air of tranquility and dignity. Henley Road runs the length of Jamaica Estates from Homelawn to 188th Streets, meeting Charlecote Ridge at an angle.

In the 1990s, Parks Commissioner Henry Stern set out to name all previously unnamed triangles and parks, and given the triangle is at Henley Road, named it for William Ernest Henley’s best-known work.

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7/22/25