Auburndale

You find the darndest things, just walking around with a camera. At Francis Lewis Boulevard and 35th Avenue there’s a mini-mall, a shopping center really, anchored by a Food Universe…

The word “utopia” comes from two Greek words meaning “not” and “place,” and so, the word literally means “no place.” It was coined in 1516 by St. Thomas More as…

Although it might look like it, I’m not standing in a burial crypt visiting the dear departed who died in 2003. No, I am on 192nd Street between 39th Avenue…

In 1901, Auburndale, the neighborhood just east of Flushing, Queens, was empty farmland. Enter the New England Development & Improvement Co., which bought the 90-acre Thomas Willets farm, and lo and…

After spending my first 35 years in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, I moved to Queens in 1993, in that gray area on the borders of Flushing, Auburndale and Fresh Meadows. My…

On a cloudy afternoon in March I took a bus to my old neighborhood at Sanford Avenue and 158th Street and walked through the area unofficially known as Boadway-Flushing as…

Caoimhghin, since Anglicized to Kevin (the name means “handsome by birth”) was an Irish monk who lived, according to tradition, for 120 years, from 498-618, in what is now County Wicklow. According…

In 1901, Auburndale, east of Flushing, Queens, was empty farmland. Enter the New England Development & Improvement Co., which bought the 90-acre Thomas Willets farm, and lo and behold, Auburndale the…

I resided in fab Flushing between 1993 and 2007, and during that time both on foot and by bike, familiarized myself with the older routes through the area including the maze…

For decades I’ve been a map fan and a map collector — I have maps of all the major American cities, many of which I acquired in the 1970s, making most…

CONTINUED FROM PART 1   Auburndale This is possibly the final photograph taken of the “old” Auburndale station. Formerly an at-grade station, the line was placed on an embankment and elevated…

In the past few months (as of this writing, April 2000) the Long Island Rail Road (or, as some call it, the Long Island Fail Road) has completely replaced its…