Elmhurst, Queens

Elmhurst
Neighborhood of Queens

The intersection of Queens Boulevard and 57th Avenue; the Macy's store in Queens Center is in the background
Country United States
State New York
County Queens
Settlement (Dutch) 1652
Population (2010)
  Total 88,427
Ethnicity
  Hispanic or Latino 43.1%
  Asian 38.9%
  White 13.6%
  Two or more races 5.8%
  African American 2.0%
ZIP code 11373
Area code(s) 718, 347, 917, 929

Elmhurst (formerly Newtown) is a working/middle class neighborhood in the New York City borough of Queens in the United States, on Long Island. It is bounded by Roosevelt Avenue on the north; the Long Island Expressway on the south; Junction Boulevard on the east; and the New York Connecting Railroad on the west.[1] The neighborhood is part of Queens Community Board 4.

History

The village was established in 1652 by the Dutch as Middenburgh (Middleburgh) and was a suburb of New Amsterdam (Nieuw Amsterdam) in New Netherland (Nieuw Nederland). The original European settlers of Elmhurst were from the nearby colony of Maspat (now called Maspeth), following threats and attacks by local Native Americans.[1][2] When the British took over New Netherland in 1664, they renamed Middleburgh as New Town (Nieuwe Stad) to maintain the Dutch heritage.[2] This was eventually simplified to Newtown. Among the English settlers in the present Elmhurst section of Newtown was Gershom Moore, in whose orchard a chance seedling produced the Newtown Pippin, Colonial America's most famous apple. The village of Newtown was established as the town seat for the township in 1683,[1] when Queens County was rearranged into a "one county, five towns" model. The Town of Newtown, which had a town hall, jail, tax office, and town clerk's office, was the center of a municipality that comprised the villages that were located north of present-day Forest Park and west of Flushing Meadows. [2]

Development came when a horsecar line, the Grand Street Line, came in 1854; the Long Island Rail Road's Main Line was built through Elmhurst in 1876, attracting more residents to the neighborhood.[2] Cord Meyer bought land at Broadway and Whitney Avenue in 1896. He proposed that the town be renamed "Elmhurst", meaning "a grove of elms"; in 1897, one year before Queens County was incorporated in the Greater City of New York, the town was renamed.[2] The renaming was done partially to disassociate the town from nearby Maspeth and the smelly, polluted Newtown Creek, and partially because elm trees (Ulmus americana) abounded in the area.[1][3]

Elmhurst developed into a fashionable district due to a housing development that was built by the Cord Meyer Development Company between 1896 and 1910, north of the Port Washington Branch railroad station. They expanded their holdings between 1905 and 1930, including Elmhurst Square, Elmhurst South, Elmhurst Heights, and New Elmhurst. Elmhurst also became home to the Grand Street LIRR station just west of the current Grand Avenue – Newtown subway station. The Grand Street LIRR station was served by the Main Line and the former Rockaway Beach Branch.[1][3] In 1936, the Independent Subway System's Queens Boulevard line was built through the neighborhood, spurring economic development but also destroying many old buildings.[2]

Prior to World War II, Elmhurst was an almost exclusively Jewish and Italian neighborhood. Following the war, Elmhurst evolved into what has been considered one of the most ethnically diverse neighborhoods in New York City.[4] By the 1980s, there were persons from 112 nations in residence in the neighborhood, which has continued to further diversify since then.[1] Among the largest ethnic groups that have settled in the area are Latinos and Chinese Americans.[5]

For many years, the Elmhurst gas tanks, a pair of large natural gas storage structures built in 1910 and 1921 on 57th Avenue between 74th and 80th Streets, were very well known. Because the Long Island Expressway frequently became congested in that area, "backup at the Elmhurst Gas Tanks" became a familiar phrase in radio traffic reporting. The gas holders were removed in 2001.[6][7] The site opened as the Elmhurst Park in 2011.

Elmhurst's population, which is mainly working-class, has seen a sharp increase since 1980, and Elmhurst has 110,000 residents as of 2015, compared to 72,000 in 1980. There has been ample development since the early 2000s, with multiple new apartment buildings completed or under construction since then.[5]

Chinatown

Elmhurst's Chinatown (唐人街, 艾浒) on Broadway is a satellite of the Flushing Chinatown.
Main article: Chinatowns in Queens

Elmhurst's rapidly growing Chinatown (艾浒 唐人街)[8] is the second in Queens, in addition to Flushing's Chinatown. Previously a small area with Chinese shops on Broadway between 81st Street and Cornish Avenue, this newly evolved second Chinatown in Queens has now expanded to 45th Avenue and Whitney Avenue and is developing as a satellite of the Flushing Chinatown. It is Queens's second-biggest Chinese enclave, behind Flushing.[5]

In Chinese translation, Elmhurst is named 艾浒 (Àihǔ in Standard Chinese). There are also many other Southeast Asian businesses and shops in the area, including Malaysian Chinese, Singaporean Chinese, Indonesian, Thai, and Vietnamese. Hong Kong Supermarket and New York Supermarket serve as the largest Chinese supermarkets selling different food varieties to this Elmhurst Chinatown.[9][10] So far, the Asia Bank serves as the only Chinese bank and the main financial resource business for this thriving Chinatown,[11] though HSBC, Chase, and other banks also are located in Elmhurst along Broadway. Like Flushing's Chinatown, it is also very highly populated by Mandarin speakers, although many also speak other varieties of Chinese.

An annexation of the Elmhurst Chinatown is the neighborhood of Corona, Queens.[12]

Religion

The Elks Lodge Local 878 building, on Queens Boulevard, is now the New Life Fellowship Church.

Places of worship include:

Malls

Side view of Queens Place from Queens Boulevard

Elmhurst has two urban shopping malls:[13] Queens Center[20] and the smaller Queens Place.[21]

The 150-store Queens Center, bounded by Queens Boulevard, 57th and 59th Avenues, and 90th and 94th Streets, opened on September 12, 1973, and was renovated and expanded across 92nd Street in 2002–4. It was built on land previously occupied by a 24-ride children's amusement park named Fairyland, which opened in 1949 and closed in 1968.[22] The site was also formerly a supermarket and automobile parking.

The smaller Queens Place, bounded by Queens Boulevard and by Justice, 55th, and 56th Avenues, is designed in a cylindrical shape and opened in 1965. Originally planned as a traditional rectangular construction designed to replace several blocks of residences, the mall had to be redesigned because the owner of the corner house at 55th Avenue and Queens Boulevard, Mary Sendek, refused to sell what had been her childhood home. The site of the corner home was demolished after Sendek died, and that site is now a small collection of stores.[13]

Streets and street names

The intersection of Corona Avenue and Junction Boulevard in eastern Elmhurst

57th Avenue was known as the Flushing and Newtown Turnpike.[13] Built in 1801, it connected with present-day Flushing Avenue in Maspeth, and extended all the way to Williamsburg, Brooklyn.[23]

The Elks Lodge's name is shared by a local street, Elks Road, a short road in a cluster of 2- and 3-story orange and yellow brick buildings located between Grand Avenue, 79th Street, and Calamus Avenue, that were built in 1930 by Louis Allmendinger for the Matthews Company.[24]

Hoffman Drive is a remnant of the wide Hoffman Boulevard. Hoffman Boulevard was straightened and renamed Queens Boulevard, but a short slip road, Hoffman Drive, leads from 57th Avenue to Woodhaven Boulevard.[13]

Horace Harding Expressway and Long Island Expressway was once a turnpike called Nassau Boulevard, which went from Elmhurst to Flushing, Bayside, and Little Neck. It was renamed for Horace J. Harding (1863–1929), a finance magnate who directed the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad and the New York Municipal Railways System; Harding encouraged city planner Robert Moses's system of parkways on New York, and after Harding died, the boulevard—now the service road of Interstate 495—was renamed after him.[25]

Horse Brook Island is a traffic island at the intersection of 90th Street, Justice Avenue, and 56th Avenue. The traffic island is reminiscent of the former Horsebrook Creek, a creek that flowed to the present-day intersection of Kneeland Avenue and Codwise Place.[13] The space was renovated from 1986–94.[3]

Justice Avenue, an Elmhurst road that has existed since the American colonial period, follows an unusual curved path through Elmhurst due to a now-defunct railroad line immediately to the south.[13]

Queens Boulevard, a wide at-grade highway that stretches from Long Island City to Jamaica, was formerly composed of two small dirt roads: Old Jamaica Road and Hoffman Boulevard. In the 1910s, it was paved and widened to 12 lanes. It is sometimes called the "Boulevard of Death" because of the high fatality rate on Queens Boulevard.[13]

The majority of Whitney Avenue, which stretches from 83rd Street in the west to Roosevelt Avenue and 93rd Street to the northeast, is on a tilted street grid, developed in the early 20th century. The street grid consists of Broadway; Aske, Benham, Case, Denman, Elbertson, Forley, Gleane, Hampton, Ithaca, Judge, Ketcham, Layton, Macnish Streets; Ketcham Place; and Baxter, Pettit, Britton, Vietor, Elmhurst, Whitney, and Lamont Avenues. Whitney Avenue also has the most religious institutions of any street in Elmhurst.[14]

Woodhaven Boulevard was known as Trotting Course Lane because it was named when horses were the main mode of transport. Although it extends to Cross Bay Boulevard in the Rockaways, two small parts of the original lane still exist in Forest Hills.[26]

Parks

Robert W. Trombino Overlook Park

Elmhurst Park is on 57th Avenue west of 80th Street. There is a children's playground with slides, swings, and exercise machines, as well as walking paths and a lawn atop a hill. The land for the park was formerly occupied by gas tanks. The park itself was opened in 2011.[27]

Moore Homestead Park is located between Broadway and 45th Avenue. There is a children's playground with slides and swings and there are different sections where people can play basketball, handball, and chess. The park is named after a nearby homestead owned by Clement Clarke Moore, whose ancestor John Moore helped negotiate Newtown's land area with the Native American population there. The park, originally acquired by the Independent Subway System and then turned into a playground, was renovated in the 1990s.[28]

Frank D. O'Connor Playground is located on Broadway between Woodside Avenue and 78th Street. There is also a children playground, basketball and handball area. Opened in 1937 and renovated in 1996, the park is named after former state senator Frank D. O'Connor.[29]

Robert W. Trombino Overlook Park in West Elmhurst, also known simply as Overlook Park, is so named because it overlooks LaGuardia Airport and Ditmars.[30] It is named after Robert W. Trombino, a New York City Parks official who died in 1990.[31]

Veterans Grove is located on 43rd Avenue by Judge and Ketcham Streets. It is a small park mainly for younger children. The park's plaque states that it was dedicated "to the memory of those soldiers from Elmhurst who lost their lives serving in World War I." The park land was acquired in 1928, and the park was originally called the Elmhurst Memorial Park. It was renovated in 1994–6.[32]

Horsebrook Island is a small triangular green space at the junction of 56th Avenue, Justice Avenue and 90th Street that was named after a stream that once ran through the Newtown settlement. The creek was buried in the first three decades of the twentieth century.[33]

Libra Triangle is a small triangular green space at the junction of Justice Avenue and Broadway.

Education

Library

The former Elmhurst Queens Library branch

An Elmhurst Queens Library branch on Broadway, demolished in 2012, is being replaced with a new library, which will open by 2017.[34] In the meantime, the library moved to a temporary location on 51st Avenue.[35]

Schools

Elmhurst is part of New York City's Department of Education Region 4. Schools in Elmhurst include:

Transportation

New York City Subway stations include Jackson Heights – Roosevelt Avenue, Woodhaven Boulevard, Grand Avenue – Newtown, and Elmhurst Avenue, all served by the E M R trains of the IND Queens Boulevard Line. In addition, the IRT Flushing Line, served by the 7 <7> trains, runs along Roosevelt Avenue, the north border of Elmhurst, with stations at 74th Street – Broadway, 82nd Street – Jackson Heights and 90th Street – Elmhurst Avenue.[47]

Buses include the Q11, Q21, Q29, Q38, Q52, Q53, Q58, Q59, Q60, Q72, Q88.[48]

Elmhurst is bounded by the Long Island Expressway to the south and by the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway to the west. Queens Boulevard, Woodhaven Boulevard, Junction Boulevard, Roosevelt Avenue, and Broadway are major roads in the community. Elmhurst is connected to Manhattan and Jamaica by Queens Boulevard and is connected to John F. Kennedy International Airport by Woodhaven Boulevard and to LaGuardia Airport by Junction Boulevard.[49]

Notable residents

Elmhurst has also produced a number of NBA basketball players, including Smush Parker. The Elks have since moved to a smaller hall on the same block, which continues to be rented out for events, including professional wrestling.

In popular culture

McDowell's, the fictional restaurant depicted in the 1988 film Coming to America, is located in Elmhurst. For the week-long shot, the filmmakers cosmetically altered an existing Wendy's restaurant, which was closed in May 2013 and was razed by December 2013 to make way for condominiums.[57] Images of surrounding streets were also used in the movie.[58]

The CBS show Blue Bloods also started filming for its third season on the residential streets of Ketcham Street, Pettit Avenue, Layton Street, and Baxter Avenue in Elmhurst on September 24, 2012.

Part of the Revenge of the Green Dragons was filmed in Elmhurst with cameo from locals.

See also

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Marques, Amanda (August 4, 1985). "If You're Thinking of Living in: Elmhurst". The New York Times. Retrieved August 7, 2014.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Vincent F. Seyfried; William Asadorian (28 August 2012). Old Queens, N.Y., in Early Photographs: 261 Prints. Courier Corporation. pp. 23–. ISBN 978-0-486-13601-1.
  3. 1 2 3 "Libra Triangle Horsebrook Island". New York City Department of Parks and Recreation. Retrieved June 8, 2015.
  4. Kleinman, Dena (October 6, 1982). "A Hospital Where Ethnic Change is Constant". The New York Times. Retrieved September 18, 2012. Dr. Stanley Bleich had been an intern less than a month at the municipal hospital in Elmhurst, Queens,... one of the city's 16 municipal hospitals, [which] is in what immigration officials have described as the city's most ethnically diverse neighborhood.
  5. 1 2 3 Kerry Murtha (February 9, 2015). "Housing gains in Elmhurst, Queens, leave many cold". Crain's New York. Retrieved June 8, 2015.
  6. Hevesi, Dennis. " Memory-Filled Tanks; Queens Loses 2 Roadside Landmarks", The New York Times, September 20, 1993. Accessed March 24, 2008. "The Elmhurst tanks — those 200-foot monoliths that stood sentinel to the changing landscape of Queens and as harbingers of hair-tearing delay on the highway to Manhattan — are down, deflated forever, their skeletal remains waiting to be dismantled."
  7. Elmhurst gas tanks, Queens Tribune. Accessed June 4, 2007. "But when the beloved landmarks weren’t really doing the business anymore they came down in 1996 and by 2001 there was almost no trace of the tanks that once supplied business and homes across the city."
  8. "A Growing Chinatown in Elmhurst". Retrieved October 1, 2010.
  9. Alperson, Myra (2003). Nosh New York: The Food Lover's Guide to New York City's Most Delicious Neighborhoods. Macmillan.
  10. Greenhouse, Steven (December 9, 2008). "Supermarket to Pay Back Wages and Overtime". The New York Times.
  11. "Elmhurst Branch". asiabank-na.com.
  12. Lawrence A. McGlinn, Department of Geography SUNY-New Paltz. "Beyond Chinatown: Dual Immigration and the Chinese Population of Metropolitan New York City, 2000, Page 4" (PDF). Middle States Geographer, 2002, 35: 110–119, Journal of the Middle States Division of the Association of American Geographers. Retrieved March 19, 2013.
  13. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 Walsh, Kevin (June 2002). "ELMHURST, Queens". Forgotten NY. Retrieved June 8, 2015.
  14. 1 2 3 4 5 Walsh, Kevin (March 2014). "WHITNEY AVENUE HOLINESS, Elmhurst". Forgotten NY. Retrieved 14 June 2015.
  15. "National Register of Historic Places Listings". Weekly List of Actions Taken on Properties: 11/17/14 through 11/21/14. National Park Service. 2014-11-28.
  16. 1 2 Nicholas Hirshon (January 19, 2006). "A BORN-AGAIN THEATER FAMED ELMWOOD SITE CONVERTED TO PRAYER CENTER". New York Daily News. Retrieved June 13, 2015.
  17. Keach Hagey (July 17, 2003). "The Rock Of All-Ages—Church Turns Elmwood Theatre Into Music Venue". Queens Chronicle. Retrieved June 13, 2015.
  18. Cinema Treasures Elmwood Theatre
  19. Staff (2009-03-13). "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service.
  20. John Roleke. "Queens Center Mall". About.com Travel.
  21. "Forest City - Properties - Shop - Urban Retail - Queens Place". forestcity.net.
  22. Riker, James (1852). The Annals of Newtown, in Queens County, New-York.
  23. Walsh, Kevin (April 2002). "MASPETH, Queens". Forgotten NY. Retrieved May 7, 2015.
  24. Walsh, Kevin (November 2013). "NYC STREETS FEATURING FULL NAMES". Forgotten NY. Retrieved 14 June 2015.
  25. "Elmhurst Park : NYC Parks". Nycgovparks.org. 2011-05-24. Retrieved December 12, 2013.
  26. "Moore Homestead Playground Highlights : NYC Parks". New York City Department of Parks & Recreation. Retrieved 2015-09-22.
  27. "Frank D. O'Connor Playground Highlights : NYC Parks". New York City Department of Parks & Recreation. Retrieved 2015-09-22.
  28. "Overlook Park". New York City Department of Parks & Recreation. Retrieved 2016-03-30.
  29. "Robert W. Trombino; Parks Official, 39". The New York Times. 1990-08-22. Retrieved 2016-03-30.
  30. "Veterans Grove Highlights". New York City Department of Parks & Recreation. Retrieved 2015-09-22.
  31. http://forgotten-ny.com/2008/03/our-mr-brook-sergey-kadinsky-follows-the-former-horse-brook/
  32. "New Elmhurst library set to open next year". Queens Chronicle. September 25, 2014. Retrieved June 2, 2015.
  33. "Branch Detailed Info | Queens Library". Queens Library. Retrieved 2016-02-10.
  34. "PS 7". nyc.gov. January 9, 2015.
  35. "PS 13". nyc.gov. January 9, 2015.
  36. "PS 89". nyc.gov. January 12, 2015.
  37. "PS 102". nyc.gov. January 12, 2015.
  38. "51st Avenue Academy".
  39. "Saint Adalbert School". saintadalbertschool.com.
  40. "Home". stbartholomewschool.org.
  41. "IS 5". nyc.gov. April 30, 2015.
  42. "newtownhighschool.org". newtownhighschool.org.
  43. Richard Gentilviso (June 11, 2008). "School Dist. 24 To Get 5 New Schools". Queens Gazette. Retrieved June 8, 2015.
  44. "Central Queens Academy Charter School (CQA)". centralqueensacademy.org.
  45. "Subway Map" (PDF). Metropolitan Transportation Authority. September 2015. Retrieved September 13, 2015.
  46. Queens Bus Map, Metropolitan Transportation Authority. Retrieved June 7, 2015.
  47. Google (June 8, 2015). "Elmhurst, NY" (Map). Google Maps. Google. Retrieved June 8, 2015.
  48. Century, Douglas (August 20, 2006). "A Night Out with Julissa Bermudez". nytimes.com. Retrieved January 6, 2008.
  49. Berkow, Ira. "BASEBALL; Amid Some Uncertainty, The Expos Play to Win", The New York Times, June 18, 2002. Accessed October 22, 2007. "Minaya, born in the Dominican Republic but raised since age 8 in Elmhurst, Queens, was the assistant general manager with the Mets when Selig called last winter and offered him the job with the Expos."
  50. Tony Pastor, father of vaudeville by Armond Fields -2007
  51. The New York Times - August 27, 1908
  52. Severo, Richard. "Carroll O'Connor, Embodiment of Social Tumult as Archie Bunker, Dies at 76", The New York Times, June 22, 2001. Accessed November 18, 2007. "The O'Connors lived well, at first in the Bronx, later in a larger apartment in Elmhurst, Queens, and finally in a nice single-family home in Forest Hills, Queens, then an enclave for people of means."
  53. Talbot, Margaret."Profiles, Supreme Confidence", The New Yorker, March 28, 2005, p. 40. Accessed October 22, 2007. "Tells about Scalia’s childhood in Trenton, New Jersey and Elmhurst Queens. His father, Eugene, was a professor at Brooklyn College and a believer in the principles of the New Criticism."
  54. Barker, Kim (2016-02-14). "In Queens, Antonin Scalia Took Pride in Melting Pot and Confrontation". The New York Times. Retrieved 2016-02-15.
  55. "Beloved Coming To America Restaurant McDowell's Will Soon Be Demolished". Gothamist. June 16, 2013. Retrieved June 14, 2015.
  56. Hirshon, Nicholas (June 14, 2013). "Queens Boulevard Loses a Movie Icon, Disguised as a Fast Food Joint". Wall Street Journal Blog. Retrieved June 14, 2015.

Further reading

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Elmhurst, Queens.

Coordinates: 40°44′34″N 73°52′48″W / 40.74291°N 73.87998°W / 40.74291; -73.87998

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Monday, April 25, 2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.