Queens Chronicle 43rd Anniversary Edition 11-11-21

C M ANN page 1 Y K

rd

43

1978 2021

43RD ANNIVERSARY EDITION • 2021

• BAYS IDE • JAM AICA • RIDGE WOOD • OZONE PARK • WHITESTONE • FOR EST HILL S • QUEEN S VILL AGE • JACKSON HEIGHT S • LONG I S L AND CIT Y

ANNIVERSARY

Welcome to the neighborhood!

QUEENS CHRONICLE, Thursday, November 11, 2021 Page 2

C M ANN page 2 Y K

Welcome to the neighborhood!

We’re Here For You and Your Family!

rrd d

43

ANNIVERSARY

We invite you to attend a FREE Webinar on Estate Planning and Guardianship.

“How do I Protect My Home and My Life Savings?”

Wednesday, Nov. 17th, 2021 at 1:00 PM Friday, Nov. 19th, 2021 at 4:00 PM This Webinar covers frequently asked questions and misconceptions on: WILLS & TRUSTS – ASSET PROTECTION – NURSING HOME ISSUES – MEDICAID QUALIFICATION

At This FREE Webinar, You’ll Find Out:

For the latest news visit qchron.com 43RD ANNIVERSARY EDITION • 2021

• How to use trusts to maintain control of inheritances?

• What is probate process without a will?

• What are the top 10 questions to ask a probate lawyer?

• What are the typical costs and fees associated with probate?

• What does one do after a will is admitted to probate?

CONTENTS • Forest Hills: ‘An incredible neighborhood’ .... 4 • Bayside: Once a playground of the rich ......... 6

Elder Law & Estate Planning Probate

• Jackson Heights: An enclave of enclaves .... 8

Guardianship Divorce Real Estate

FRAB-079811

Our Practice Areas are:

Registration is limited. Reservations are required.

Register Online NOW For Our FREE WEBINARS! Just go to www.frankbrunolaw.com and click on the signup button at the top of the page.

IF YOU HAVE TROUBLE REGISTERING CALL US NOW

For more information:

718-418-5000

69-09 Myrtle Ave., Glendale, NY 11385 Email: frank@frankbrunolaw.com

• Ozone Park: Affordable and accessible ...... 10 • Jamaica: The center of it all for generations ... 12 • Ridgewood: Where history is a ‘rock’ star ... 14 • Queens Village: What’s in a name? Home ... 18 • Long Island City: The fine art of industry ... 20 • Whitestone: From celebrity to community .... 22 Supplement editor: Peter C. Mastrosimone Editorial layout: Gregg Cohen Cover and section design: Jan Schulman File photo, above; cover photo by Michael Gannon

C M ANN page 3 Y K

Page 3 QUEENS CHRONICLE, Thursday, November 11, 2021

For the ANNIVERSARY latest news visitEDITION qchron.com 43RD • 2021

QUEENS CHRONICLE, Thursday, November 11, 2021 Page 4

C M ANN page 4 Y K 43rd Anniversary Edition

Everyone’s a neighbor

Colonial farmers planted the seeds of Forest Hills

by Michael Gannon Editor

Legend has it that the farming village of Whitepot may have gotten its name from housewares that 17th-century Dutch settlers traded to native American tribes for a deed to settle the land.

Even though the English took over the area in Colonial times, a few of the Dutch farmers’ descendents still were lords of their land at the turn of the 20th century.

“You had about six major family farms and a bunch of smaller ones,” said Michael Perlman, a fifth-generation Forest Hills resident who has been chronicling its history for two decades.

“You had Ascan Backus; Horatio N. Squire; Casper Joost-Springsteen,” he said in a recent interview. “You also had Abram V.S. Lott; James Van Siclen; Sarah B. Volmer.”

And then a young man named Cord Meyer Jr. acted on his belief that Queens was ripe for development, and purchased 600 acres of farmland.

“Forest Hills originated in 1906,” Perlman said. “It was named by the Cord Meyer Development Company because it was close to Forest Park.”

The very first road that was cut through was Roman Avenue, now known as 72nd Avenue, north of Austin Street, the site of the 10 row houses that housed Forest Hills’ first carpenter, plumber and electrician.

“Today, sadly, only two of those row houses still stand,” Perlman said.

Forest Hills Gardens came in 1909, a year after Margaret Sage and the Russell Sage Foundation bought 142 acres just south of the Long Island Rail Road for a private community that Perlman said remains mostly intact from its opening. Famed architect Grosvenor Atterbury designed much of the community. Most of the “garden” part can be attributed to landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted Jr. Perlman said much of the growth of Forest Hills came between the opening of the Queensboro Bridge in 1909 and the 1939-40 World’s Fair; with a great assist in 1936 upon the opening of the IND subway line along Queens Boulevard.

If you were born before the late 1960s, Forest Hills was synonymous with tennis. From 1915 through 1977, the U.S. Tennis Championship — it became the Open, admitting professionals, in 1968 — was played at the West Side Tennis Club.

The iconic arena, which now hosts headline musical concerts since its revival, was built as the country’s first tennis-specific stadium. Going back to the days of wood racquets and women playing in long skirts, the likes of Althea Gibson, Billie Jean King, Arthur Ashe, Jimmy Connors and Chris Evert

A photographer and a line of cars face down Dartmouth Street toward Continental Avenue in this GEORGE GRANTHAM BAIN COLLECTION / LIBRARY OF CONGRESS photo dated between 1915 and 1920. made history there. Even a kid from Douglaston named McEnroe first came to prominence there.

And the club was used as a location for a key scene in the 1951 Alfred Hitchcock thriller “Strangers on a Train.”

Many who were born in Forest Hills have gone on to fame or historic significance; including entertainers Awkwafina; Hank Azaria; Billy Eichner; David Caruso; Ray Romano; Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel; Walter Becker; and members of the legendary punk band The Ramones, including Dee Dee, Joey, Johnny and Tommy.

Other natives include David Baltomore, the 1975 Nobel laureate for medicine; Florida Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz; Jack Lew, former U.S. treasury secretary and chief of staff to President Barack Obama; “Blazing Saddles” screenwriter Andrew Bergman; and fashion designer Donna Karan.

Famous residents include entertainers Michael Landon; Carol Lynley; Carroll O’Connor, who player Queens’ own Archie Bunker on “All in the Family; comedian Alan King; and Thelma Ritter.

They also include journalist Jimmy Breslin; author and lecturer Dale Carnegie; U.S. Rep. Geraldine Ferraro, the first woman to serve as a vice presidential candidate on a major party’s ticket in 1980; John Francis Hyland, mayor of New York City from 1918 to 1925; author and lecturer Helen Keller; and baseball executive Branch Rickey, who signed Jackie Robinson with the Brooklyn Dodgers.

And Peter Parker, a young photojournalist who rose to fame by being on the scene just after superhero Spiderman had done his duty, is a graduate of Forest Hills High School.

Forest Hills Gardens also was the site of a

For the latest news visit qchron.com 43RD ANNIVERSARY EDITION • 2021

FORE ST HILLS

number of historic events.

July 4, 1917, saw former President Teddy Roosevelt give a speech defending U.S. involvement in the conflict that would come to be known to future generations as World War I. Roosevelt spoke from the balcony of the LIRR station overlooking Station Square.

Sixty years later, less than two blocks away, the neighborhood played an unwitting, unwanted role in city history when two women were murdered and a man wounded in early 1977 by “Son of Sam” serial killer David Berkowitz.

Christine Freund, 26, and her fiancee, John Diel, were shot by Berkowitz as they sat in a car outside of the Forest Hills Inn on Jan. 30.

Freund was pronounced dead at a nearby hospital. On March 8, less than 100 yards away, Virginia Voskerichian, 19, was shot and killed on Dartmouth Street as she was coming home from college classes. Berkowitz shot her through the schoolbooks she held up to defend herself.

Among today’s residents, Irene Raevsky is a relative newcomer, moving to Kew Gardens when her family left the Ukraine in 2005 when she was 12; and moving to Forest Hills two years later. But she sings its praises, just like the lifer Perlman.

“I love Kew Gardens and Forest Hills,” Raevsky said. “Forest Hills is changing, but it has a lot of attractive things in it. Austin Street is an attraction with all of its restaurants and stores. You have the parks and the private gardens at the homes along the streets.”

She said the loves the apartment buildings and “great schools.”

“And every apartment is near the subway so it’s very convenient to get everywhere.”

Her family, too, has an appreciation for the West Side Tennis Club.

“I went to some concerts a few years ago,

and my daughter took tennis lessons there,” Raevsky explained.

Aigner Chocolates at 103-02 Metropolitan Ave. has seen its own share of history. Three generations of one family operated the confectionery that dates back to 1930.

Then in 2015, after restaurateur Mark Libertini and social worker Rachel Kellner moved to Queens, he was driving down Metropolitan Avenue when he saw a chocolate shop and decided to stop and pick up something for his wife. “[I] found it closed with a for sale sign on the door,” Libertini says on the shop’s website.

They opened just before that Halloween.

“We live in Bayside. We didn’t know a lot about Forest Hills,” Kellner said in a interview last week. “One thing I did know was that Metropolitan Avenue ran through it. But whenever I heard ‘Forest Hills,’ my association has always been Austin Street. That was my understanding of the area.

“Now, we don’t live in Forest Hills. But I feel like we live in Forest Hills, because our whole life is there. And it’s an incredible neighborhood with strong community ties. A lot of people grew up in the area and stayed in the area or move back to the area. And I can understand the appeal.”

She and Eileen Arabian, whose husband owns Dee’s Brick Oven Pizza, have even cofounded Metro Village Forest Hills, an informal group to support small businesses.

And Kellner said the still relatively new kids were not intimidated by taking over an iconic business.

“That was more exciting than scary,” she said. “We certainly have big shoes to fill, and we’re carrying on decades worth of tradition.

Our hope is that we’ve done the Aigner family proud and we’ve done the community Q proud.”

Former President Teddy Roosevelt on July 4, 1917 from the Long Island Rail Road balcony FILE PHOTO at Station Plaza.

C M ANN page 5 Y K Page 5 QUEENS CHRONICLE, Thursday, November 11, 2021

The SilvercrestCenter

Affiliated with

Our healthcare specialists are leaders in their fi elds and bring their learning and expertise to your case, resulting in the best possible rehabilitative outcome.

The SilvercrestCenter

For information on admissions, please call:

718 480 4000

144-45 87th Avenue Briarwood, NY 11435 www.silvercrest.org admissions@silvercrest.org

Affiliated with

NewYork-Presbyterian

For the ANNIVERSARY latest news visit qchron.com 43RD EDITION • 2021

We deliver outstanding quality and excellence in patient-centered care.

‘We chose Silvercrest because the continuity of care they provide is second to none’

QUEENS CHRONICLE, Thursday, November 11, 2021 Page 6

C M ANN page 6 Y K 43rd Anniversary Edition

Bayside, once a place of leisure

Corner of Queens was filled with estates and golf courses

by Katherine Donlevy Associate Editor

Bayside has a rich history dating back thousands of years.

It was the home to the Matinecock tribe first and foremost. The Native Americans can date their history on the land back to 2000 B.C., but they were largely massacred and displaced by settlers in the 17th century, spurring the beginning of what we know today as Bayside.

The area was transformed into farmland, and remained that way through the next two centuries and multiple transfers of power: from Dutch to English to American. History swept through the acreage — Fort Totten played a major role in the Revolutionary War, Bayside as a part of Flushing was included as one of the first five towns of Queens — but it remained farmland.

The 19th century marked a turning point for Bayside. Portions of the neighborhood remained fertile growing land, but it slowly became a rural resort for the wealthy. Bayside became a place of leisure.

“The people in Bayside during the late 19th and early 20th century, these are people of means,” said Kara Schlichting, an assistant professor of history at Queens College. “The people who are in Bayside have more in common with the estate communities of Sands Point than the immigrant working class that’s starting to buy very modest homes in Flushing or Rego Park or Kew Gardens.”

To picture this time, Schlichting said, think of “The Great Gatsby.” The Buchanans, Nick Carraway and Gatsby himself were fictionalized versions of the real-life elite who had the luxury of money and time during the Industrial Revolution, Gilded Age and following decades. Excess wealth and time allowed them to travel out to destinations away from the working-class people of the inner city.

Even today, Bayside is comparable to the communities of Nassau County, Schlichting continued, because Great Neck, Manhasset and the rest were all part of Queens until 1898 when they opted to become their own county. Despite being geographically, demographically and economically similar to Bayside, Little Neck and Douglaston, the Nassau towns wanted to remain suburban.

Throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries, estates began cropping up alongside the farms, as well as yacht clubs, country clubs and golf courses, all membership-based organizations associated with the wealthy.

“Bayside used to be a retreat,” said Schlichting. “They’re there for the coast, looking across Little Neck Bay.” The Great Depression put a stark end to the luxurious century of Bayside, but remnants of the era remained in the following

The development of Bayside Hills coincided with Bayside’s major personality change of the 1930s that was brought on by the Great Crash of 1929, as Schlichting points out.

“The Great Depression wipes out the inherited wealth you need to maintain these estates,” she said, adding that the establishment of the federal income tax in 1913 greatly affected society’s elites’ grasp on their wealth. “It starts to make it more expensive to maintain these estates. This is where we see the subdivision of these lands.”

Development swept across Bayside during those years, and brought in a new class of individuals who could afford to live in the once elite-only neighborhood.

“The major beginning of growth was postWorld War I,” said DiBenedetto, who lives in a house that was built in the 1920s. “Most development in Bayside happened between 1920 and, let’s say, to the ’60s. The ’20s to the ’60s were the major part where big pieces of land were bought, golf courses were A painting in the front room of the Bayside Historical Society captured the Bayside Yacht Club as bought; they changed it into housing.”

PHOTO BY KATHERINE DONLEVY it was in 1967, the year before it was destroyed in a fire.

Accessible transportation soon surrounded decades, though many of those eventually to Bayside Hills, and was converted into a Bayside: The Cross Island Parkway opened became obsolete as well. in 1939, the Throgs Neck Bridge in 1961 and golf clubhouse.

The Crocheron Hotel once stood at the “The hills of Belleclaire are why we’re the Clearview Expressway in 1963. bottom of 35th Avenue where it dead ends, called Bayside Hills,” said Michael Feiner, Growth continued through the ’70s to the Paul DiBenedetto, president of the Bayside the president of the Bayside Hills Civic Asso- 21st century, he continued, but it was more Historical Society, said. It was once a farm- ciation. “We are Bayside Hills because of that about “filling in the gaps.” Essentially, homehouse before it was converted into a resort. owners would sell a plot of land with a sizgolf course.”

Before the Cross Island Parkway was wedged The neighborhood continues to honor that able yard as two parcels, and a new home onto the coast in the 1930s, it served as a per- legacy by maintaining its 33 malls and green would be built where the yard once was. fect waterfront retreat for celebrities and poliAdditionally, apartment buildings and condospaces, which had once been mowed through ticians from 1850 to 1908, when it was tragi- the use of hired goats, according to Feiner. miniums began cropping up. Bayside became cally destroyed in a fire.

Bayside Hills was once considered part of more congested and affordable.

The property became city DiBenedetto said the growth has continBayside — and often is still by the Post parkland 20 years later. ued to today, but it looks different. Modern Office and Google Maps, an error Feiner “It was the place to go continues to correct today — but it became growth comes as old buildings are knocked and hang out, party, have its own neighborhood when the property was down for new ones, often those that fit multiQ fun and do boating, be in the water,” said sold to developers in 1936. ple families.

DiBenedetto. “People would come from the city and hang out there.”

The Bayside Yacht Club was founded in 1902 at the bottom of 29th Avenue, where the Marina and its footbridge still lie.

The yacht club had originally been a barn, but was remodeled after a fire and expanded to include a clubhouse, dining area, kitchen, bathhouses and more. The original fire was a premonition, and the club suffered a checkered past of hurricanes and murder before it suffered the same fate as the Crocheron Hotel and was destroyed in a 1968 blaze.

There is one institution that shared similar beginnings to the Crocheron Hotel and Bayside Yacht Club, but escaped a tragic ending.

What is now the neighborhood of Bayside Hills had once been a golf course.

The Belleclaire Country Club was founded after Manhattanites purchased the 117 acres from the Caine family, who had farmed the land from 1852 to 1917. The farmhouse had stood at the southern end of Bell Avenue near the south side of Rocky Hill Road, or what is The Caine family farmhouse once stood on what is now known as 48th Avenue in Bayside Hills now 48th Avenue, near the present entrance before it was transformed into a golf course and clubhouse.

PHOTO COURTESY BHCA

For the latest news visit qchron.com 43RD ANNIVERSARY EDITION • 2021

BAYSIDE

C M ANN page 7 Y K

WE WOULD LIKE TO WISH A

Rated one of the best Book Shops in Queens! Like us on With excellent CALL AHEAD aacebook OPEN: customer service!

TO QUEENS CHRONICLE

The Austin Book Shop

DO YOU NEED A MORTGAGE? o: 631-230-3262

©2021 M1P • AUSB-079795

Saturdays & Sundays 10 AM to 4 PM

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY

Page 7 QUEENS CHRONICLE, Thursday, November 11, 2021

NMLS #3901

m: 347-672-6260

usmortgage.com/carmen.massienoest

CARMEN MASSIE-NOEST Mortgage Loan Originator NMLS #2081211

bookbums@aol.com 104-29 Jamaica Ave., Richmond Hill, N.Y. 11418 718.441.1199

STEVEN ALLAN MILNER Founder & CEO NMLS #19283

US Mortgage Corporation (NMLS ID#3901). 201 Old Country Road, Suite 140, Melville, NY 11747; (800) 562-6715. Licensed Mortgage Banker – NYS Department of Financial Services, License #B500533. Approved Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac Direct Seller & Servicer. Certain restrictions may apply. This is not intended as an offer to extend credit nor a commitment to lend. US Mortgage Corporation is licensed as a mortgage lender nationwide except for HI, MO, and NV. For licensing information, go to: https:// usmortgage.com/disclosures/ and https://www.nmlsconsumeraccess.org/EntityDetails.aspx/COMPANY/3901.

JOIN A COMMUNITY OF YOUNG LEADERS Prep for Prep partners with families to build the foundation for academic, social, and leadership success for students of color.

ÚNETE A UNA COMUNIDAD DE LÍDERES JÓVENES HOY

www.prepforprep.org/admissions

Información está disponible en español

For the ANNIVERSARY latest news visit qchron.com 43RD EDITION • 2021

If you have a child currently attending 5th, 6th, or 7th grade in a New York City public, parochial, or charter school, apply now! For questions, please call (212) 579-1470.

QUEENS CHRONICLE, Thursday, November 11, 2021 Page 8

C M ANN page 8 Y K 43rd Anniversary Edition

The mosaic that is Jackson Heights Diverse community faces challenges and keeps evolving

by Mark Lord

decade later.

The Beautification Group was formed in 1988, rekindling commu“We’re a vibrant, visually interest- nity spirit through walking tours and various activities aimed at improving ing community,” said Petra Gelbart, a longtime resident of Jackson the neighborhood.

Since the early 2000s, the area has Heights. “It’s like visiting 20 differbeen a desirable destination, attractent countries.”

In fact, the neighborhood is the ing residents with a wide variety of most diverse community in the backgrounds.

Among them was Gelbart, a whole world, according to Councilman Danny Dromm, who said that native of the Czech Republic who no fewer than 167 different languag- moved into the neighborhood in 2008. A college professor and music es are spoken there.

Quite an accomplishment for a therapist, Gelbart is the mother of piece of land that never even three children, now 16, 14 and 5 years old. appeared on a map of Queens Coun“We wanted a diverse neighborty prior to 1900. Back then, it was a vast marshland, with the first build- hood,” she said in a recent telephone i nter v iew,” ings not going up explaining how until around 1911. she wound up livAnd those ing in Jackson buildings consistHeights. ed of approxi“It was an affordable option,” she mately two dozen two-story row houses, erected just north of Roos- said, adding, “I really liked the evelt Avenue, according to Daniel strong arts program” at one of the Karatzas, author of “Jackson area schools.

And her husband, referred to by Heights: A Garden in the City,” and board member of the Jackson Gelbart as a “foodie,” was further drawn to the neighborhood by the Heights Beautification Group.

By around 1920, full-scale devel- wide variety of international edibles opment began, which caused land readily available there.

Gelbart’s family is now in the provalue to appreciate and rents to skyrocket. Of course, the stock market cess of moving to a new apartment. crash and Depression put a halt to all “We have no interest in leaving” the area, though she admits that it that, leading to a period of financial difficulties that lasted until after doesn’t always live up to her “idealistic notion that all groups were World War II. Things began looking up for a friends.”

Instead, she said, “I found quickly while, with demands for housing in Jackson Heights on the rise. Then a that we’re living next to each other new setback occurred — the New but not together. People tend to stick York City fiscal crisis of the 1970s, a to their own culture groups.”

Finding it difficult sometimes to time also marked by soaring crime feel a part of the community as a rates in the area.

Another reversal happened a whole, she decided to do something Chronicle Contributor

For the latest news visit qchron.com 43RD ANNIVERSARY EDITION • 2021

JACKSON HEIGHTS

Marching in Jackson Heights’ first LGBT Pride Parade in 1993 are Maritza PHOTO COURTESY NYC COUNCIL Martinez, left, Daniel Dromm and Brendan Fay.

to encourage more integration.

The result was “Music Brains,” a program she started in the spring that found her teaching music in Travers Park, welcoming area residents “from all walks of life, regardless of their ability to pay.”

She also plans to begin teaching intercultural classes in the science of music.

“As a neighborhood, we’re diverse but there is a good bit of segregation that goes on,” she said. “Plenty of people for years have been trying community-building efforts. We need to get people to talk to each other in the same space.”

Overall, though, she’s content enough to tell people “if they don’t come to Jackson Heights, they’re making a huge mistake.”

Dromm, who has lived in the area for 29 years, would likely agree.

In a recent telephone interview, he highlighted a few of the reasons.

“You walk down the street and you bump into someone you know,” he said. “It’s a small town in a big city.

People are kind, giving, talkative.

I’ve always found acceptance.”

It wasn’t always that way.

Among the area’s early attractions were the garden apartments that were built around private parks, appealing to city dwellers in search of little green spaces to call their own. According to an article by freelance journalist Manmeet Sahni, they were restricted to include only members of the white middle class.

Jews and African Americans were banned until the mid-20th century, when the previous residents began to move to the suburbs.

Beginning in the late 1970s, the area saw an influx of immigrants from South and Central America and Southeast Asia.

Located in the northwest region of the borough, and bordered by North Corona to the east, Elmhurst to the south, Woodside to the west, northern Astoria to the northwest and East Elmhurst to the northeast, the neighborhood was home to a population of just over 108,000 in 2010, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

Today, members of the earlier immigrant communities — Italian, Jewish, Irish — live in relative harmony with the newer arrivals, from countries including India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Tibet, Nepal and Thailand.

“You can see the immigration patterns by looking at the shops,” Dromm said. “There are very few

Among the happenings in Jackson Heights’ Travers Park are music therapist Petra Gelbart’s Music Brains events for kids. Joining her here at one are, clockwise from top right, her sons Patrik on the viola and Niklo on ukulele, her daughter, Julie, and other participants including Daniel, Ezekiel and TifPHOTO BY HELENA SAFAROVA fany Van-Dien. storefront vacancies,” suggesting these newer arrivals are hoping to live the American dream.

Karatzas indicated in a recent telephone interview that Jackson Heights has “no major touristic sites,” but he is proud of how well it functions as a neighborhood.”

He also pointed with pride to the area’s Historic District, which was established in 1993, between 76th and 88th streets, Roosevelt Avenue and Northern Boulevard. The district was listed on the national Register of Historic Places in 1999.

Another area of interest is Diversity Plaza, a public space that opened in 2012 at 37th Road between 73rd and 74th streets. It serves as a town square, where cultural celebrations are held, as well as rallies, protests, music performances, art exhibits and

gatherings for civic activism.

The spot is sometimes referred to as “the mecca of immigrant communities.”

In fact, according to Dromm, it has been “a huge success bringing together diverse communities within the South Asian community. Folks in their homeland might be at war with each other, but here they interact with each other.”

Named after John C. Jackson, a descendant of one of the original Queens families and an entrepreneur, Jackson Heights has had some headline-making moments.

One involved the expansion of the local Travers Park. According to Dromm, the area was sorely lacking in park space. “I purchased the Garden School’s playground and I closed continued on page 17

C M ANN page 9 Y K Page 9 QUEENS CHRONICLE, Thursday, November 11, 2021

Back Feet on your

85% Private Rooms

Quick recoveries - from a pandemic to your rehab - is where we excel.

In our newly established Synagogue, renovated and expanded gym, recreation center and cafe, you’ll rehab in a beautifully modern, traditionally Kosher setting. And our bright rehabilitation gym, cutting-edge equipment, and focused one-on-one staff will help you recover quickly with optimal results.

MARGARET TIETZ Short-Term Care | Long-Term Care | Hospice Care

Call our friendly admissions team to discover how we are well-prepared to get you back on your feet and back home quickly.

q718-298-7806 Beautiful Outdoor Gardens

For more information visit our website: margarettietz.org

For the ANNIVERSARY latest news visitEDITION qchron.com 43RD • 2021

Nursing & Rehabilitation Center

Newly Established Synogogue

QUEENS CHRONICLE, Thursday, November 11, 2021 Page 10

C M ANN page 10 Y K 43rd Anniversary Edition

Ozone Park: the antidote to NYC Suburban dreams and memories within the big city

by Deirdre Bardolf Associate Editor

In the early 19th century, diseases like smallpox, yellow fever, measles, malaria and tuberculosis plagued New York City.

There was also a torrent of heat waves throughout the late 1880s that killed thousands of people.

Residents who were packed in overcrowded tenements in densely populated areas like Lower Manhattan were afflicted by disease, heat and poor sanitation, all during a time when medical experts were still trying to figure out how diseases spread.

That made newspaper advertisements for a new neighborhood called Ozone Park rather appealing to families and workers looking to escape the hazardous conditions in New York City.

“Own your home at Ozone Park and enjoy the pure life-giving air of the Atlantic Ocean,” read one ad from an 1883 issue of The New York Sun. Like disease, the concept of “ozone” was relatively new as well and not understood as the toxic gas that has both beneficial and harmful effects on the Earth’s atmosphere.

“At the time, they thought air could be infectious and dangerous,” said Kara Schlichting, a historian of urban and environmental history and assistant professor of history at Queens College.

“They started to identify ozone in the atmosphere and it was linked to beaches. Sea air was seen as ozone-rich and healthy,” she said.

People were then drawn to the newly developing neighborhoods that were given these bucolic names that “evoked green, Arcadian ideas,” like Ozone Park and Woodhaven.

Ozone Park became a destination for factory workers starting with the development of a factory built by French immigrants Charles Lalance and Florian Grosjean, near the site of the old Union Course racetrack in Woodhaven. The original factory burned down in 1876 and a new one was rebuilt just south of the location and as a result, employees needed housing nearby.

The clocktower from the Lalance and Grosjean factory still stands today at 91-20 Atlantic Ave., which is now occupied by Medisys Health Network.

Then, two land spectators, Benjamin Hitchcock and Charles Denton, bought up surrounding plots of land to sell to investors and construction companies looking to attract second-generation German and Irish workingclass folks.

Broader appeal came with Long Island Rail Road expansion, said Schlichting, back when it was 5 cents for a train ride.

By 1920, there was a boom for suburbia in Queens County, with a population of almost

Linden Boulevard and 113th Street in Ozone Park in 1976. This corner looks very different today but Ozone Park has always been beloved for its small-town feel and local businesses, in addition PHOTO BY JOHN MARGOLIES VIA LIBRARY OF CONGRESS to its accessibility to mass transit and the airport. half a million.

Suburban growth was so widespread that it was suggested the lawn mower become the official symbol of Queens.

“Germans, Irish, Italians and Eastern Europeans moved from the core to the outer edges.

The borough wasn’t even ready, streets and sewers were barely down,” said Schlichting.

“They put the cart before the horse in excitement of moving to these developments.”

State Sen. Joe Addabbo Jr. says the love that his father, Congressman Joseph P. Addabbo Sr., had for Ozone Park was passed on to him also.

He said his father moved five times in his whole life, all within a onemile radius of Ozone Park.

“I was always fascinated with Ozone Park because of that small-town feel,” Addabbo said. “In a big city, that little slice of Ozone Park was a little slice of Main Street.”

He recalled the local hardware store, the grocer and the movie theater on nearby Cross Bay Boulevard which provided access to anything else one could have needed.

For him, Ozone Park is about the memories. It was at that movie theater that he saw his last film with his dad before he passed — “Rocky V.” Addabbo said that the area has gotten more diverse and is thankful for that.

“My kids growing up in a neighborhood now that’s diverse only benefits them,” he said.

“Even though Ozone Park has undergone some changes over the years, the warmth of people and the camaraderie in the neighborhood feeling is still there.”

If someone were moving to Ozone Park now, he would tell them he hopes they like neighbors. “We’re very neighborly. For the

For the latest news visit qchron.com 43RD ANNIVERSARY EDITION • 2021

OZON E PA RK

most part, we live on top of each other. We’re attached at the hip, our homes are attached, we have common driveways.” That is always a cause for a “Hello” in passing.

John Dibs talks to people considering a move to the area pretty often. He is a real estate agent who grew up in South Ozone Park and has owned his business in Ozone Park for over 20 years. His great-grandfather was in the cavalry in World War I and when he came back to the United States, he got a job at the original Aqueduct Race Track and then started his family in Ozone Park.

Dibs says he thinks the area is “undervalued” because it is so accessible, with JFK Airport nearby, along with the subway, train lines and ample buses. These days, homes go for around $600,000 for a one-family and around $800,00 for two-family.

He said home ownership is feasible in the area because people can buy a multifamily dwelling, rent out part of the space and therefore pay little in out-of-pocket costs.

In few other places in the city can one find a one-bedroom apartment for $1,500 or a twobedroom for $1,800.

Dibs mentioned Resorts World Casino and the brand-new Hyatt Regency JFK Airport as not only destinations but job providers. He also noted the active community members who run groups like the Cityline Ozone Park Civilian Patrol and the many food pantries.

Before the casino and hotel began to draw people, Ozone Park was home to famous residents over the years including singer Cyndi Lauper, actor John Lord, actress and singer Bernadette Peters and actor Ray Abruzzo, who appeared in “The Sopranos.” There are, of course, the real mobsters like John Gotti of the Gambino crime family, who operated out of Ozone Park.

Writer Jack Kerouac was jokingly called

the “Wizard of Ozone Park” by fellow writer friends Neal Cassady and Allen Ginsburg.

In a journal entry, he wrote of his home in Ozone Park: “that very house that sometimes rattles and is set on the edge of the world instead of Crossbay Boulevard.”

If anyone is a testament to loving Ozone Park and staying there, it is Theresa Labiento, who lived there almost 100 years before selling her home and moving in with her daughter in Howard Beach. It is close but she still misses it dearly, she said.

Labiento celebrated her centennial on Oct. 11 with a family party and again with the Golden Age Club at the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary church, which she attended growing up.

“I loved where I lived,” she said. She grew up on 102nd Avenue and remembers being active in the nearby churches. “There were a lot of things going on in church. They had bingo, they had dances.”

Once she was a little older, she remembers going to the nearby Forest Park and visiting the historic carousel with her girlfriends.

Eventually, they would go to dances and different halls and clubs, like the one where she met her husband.

“We had our fun,” said Labiento. “Good, clean fun.”

She remembers being shocked that one of her brothers would move out of the city and to Long Island.

“We thought, ‘Well, my goodness, where did he go? Now we’ve got to go visit him and stay the night.’”

Schlichting sums up what Addabbo, Dibs and Labiento all recognize and cherish about the area and what rooted their families here for generations: “It’s that suburban dream within the big city.”

“That’s what Eastern Queens is,” she said.

“It has a small-town feel within the largest Q metropolitan system in America.”

The famous clocktower on the former site of the Grosjean kitchenware factory on Atlantic PHOTO BY JIM HENDERSON VIA WIKIPEDIA Avenue.

C M ANN page 11 Y K Page 11 QUEENS CHRONICLE, Thursday, November 11, 2021

Explore Faith-Based Senior Care at Ozanam Hall of Queens!

Ozanam Hall of Queens Nursing Home in $CXSKFG 0; OėGRS • K^aZ[bebmZmbhg !bg hnk g^per&k^ghoZm^]% lmZm^& h_&ma^&Zkm k^aZ[ `rf" • Ehg`&m^kf \Zk^

• • • •

Ldbee^] gnklbg` \Zk^ Dementia care Palliative care Ahlib\^ \Zk^

Experience our unparalleled hospitality and quality bg Z ahf^&ebd^ l^mmbg`

Learn more about our services by reaching out to Ozanam Hall today! Hnk \hffngbmr bl \^gmkZeer eh\Zm^] Zg] ^Zlber Z\\^llb[e^ mh ab`apZrl Zg] in[eb\ mkZglihkmZmbhg' Ozanamhall.org | 718-223-5676 | Bayside, NY

ozanamhall.org/virtual-tour

For the ANNIVERSARY latest news visitEDITION qchron.com 43RD • 2021

Ozanam Hall, a member of the Carmelite System, \Zkkb^l forth the mission of the Carmelite Sisters by `bobg` oZen^ Zg] ]b`gbmr mh ma^ Z`^] Zg] bg_bkf Zg] ikhob]bg` \heeZ[hkZmbo^ pZrl mh f^^m ma^ g^^]l h_ mh]Zr l ^e]^ker' :l Z <Zmaheb\ _Zbma&[Zl^]% ghm&_hk&ikh_bm l^gbhk ebobg` \hffngbmr% ikhob]bg` \hfiZllbhgZm^ \Zk^ bl Z fbgblmkr _hk nl% ghm cnlm Z ch['

Get a virtual tour around Ozanam Hall by visiting our website or scanning the QR code below:

For the latest news visit qchron.com 43RD ANNIVERSARY EDITION • 2021

QUEENS CHRONICLE, Thursday, November 11, 2021 Page 12

C M ANN page 12 Y K 43rd Anniversary Edition

Jamaica: ‘rest-town’ to major hub Former beaver encampment becomes bustling city

by Naeisha Rose Associate Editor

For many, the history of Jamaica, a middle-class mixed commercial and residential neighborhood, dates back to 1656, when it was first established as Rustdorp (rest-town) by Peter Stuyvesant, the last Dutch director general.

Before Dutch colonial rule, Jamaica was an encampment for nomadic Native Americans, according to Jason Antos, the executive director of the Queens Historical Society.

“There were indigenous people there,” said Antos. “Jamaica comes from the word Yamecah, which is a Lenape word for the place of the beaver pelt, and it was corrupted by the British into the word Jamaica.”

Lenape is the language of the Algonquin Native American tribe that traded fur with the Dutch before the British took over what is mostly modern day New York in 1664. The Algonquins’ history in the Americas is more than 12,000 years.

“It also has a rich Colonial history,” said Antos. “It was where the British were encamped during the Revolutionary War.” After the Revolutionary War came to an end in 1783, Jamaica was also where the British left to escape from the American revolutionaries.

“Jamaica extends down to the water where the bay is and it gives access to Brooklyn,” said Antos about the escape route. “It was strategically located.”

Rufus King, an abolitionist and a framer of the Constitution, was one of the Founding Fathers of the United States and his legacy continues to live on in Jamaica at King Manor Museum at Rufus King Park, located at 150-29 Jamaica Ave. “His home is in the heart of Jamai-

The AirTrain links Jamaica directly to PHOTO BY MICHAEL GANNON JFK Airport.

Pettits Hotel on Jamaica Avenue and Parsons Boulevard, the corner that is now home to Jamaica Multiplex Cinemas. PHOTO COURTESY QUEENS HISTORICAL SOCIETY ca,” said Antos. “It’s a historical house on a huge piece of property.”

The manor was purchased in 1805 as a place for King to retire from politics, according to Kelsey Brow, executive director of King Manor Museum, which offers tours of the home.

The museum, which was opened to the public in 1900, was one of the earliest historic house museums in the United States, is a New York City landmark and was listed as a National Register of Historic Places. It is the only such historic house in Southeast Queens and once sat on 160 acres.

The 11-acre park lies where the remaining estate and farmland used to exist.

At a trianglular plaza located at 173-175 Hillside Avenue is Major Mark Park. At its center is a bronze angel figure that commemorates the Union Army soldiers and sailors from Queens who died during the Civil War. The life-size angel figure was designed by French-trained sculptor Frederick Wellington Ruckstull and has a laurel wreath (victory symbol) in the left hand and a palm frond (peace symbol) in the right.

The park was named after Major John Mark, a soldier who lost his life in World War I. South of Jamaica’s business district is Det. Keith L. Williams Park located on Liberty Avenue, between 172nd and 173rd streets. The green space was named after a member of the NYPD Queens District Attorney’s Squad who was murdered Nov. 13, 1989 by a prisoner who was being returned to Riker’s Island.

The parkland consists of a recreational center, running track, seasonal pool and playing courts and fields and was dedicated to the

detective in 1991.

Before the Civil War, Jamaica consisted of family farm homesteads that grew lettuce and cabbage and had fruit orchards.

“There were very few working farms in Queens,” said Antos.

By the 1870s, Jamaica had experienced a population boom.

“There were a lot of businesses on Jamaica Avenue, which was originally known as Fulton Avenue,” said Antos. “Jamaica Avenue began as the Jamaica Plank Road.”

In the 1840s through the 1850s, thoroughfares were built.

“The roads were originally dirt roads, but when they started building thoroughfares, they used plankwood, similar to the wood found on a boardwalk,” he said.

In the 1920s, the planks were removed and replaced by asphalt.

“The Jamaica Railway was one of the first major rail lines of the Long Island Rail Road to come through Queens County and served as a transportation hub as it still does today,” said Antos. “That hub was responsible for bringing a lot of people into the neighborhood ... Jamaica was one of the original townships of Queens County and it became a major residential area.”

Under English rule, the former Dutch settlement became the center known as the “Township of Jamaica” and subsequently became the first county seat of Queens from 1656 to 1788. After the Revolutionary War, it became the first incorporated village on Long Island in 1814. Its boundaries extended from present-day Van Wyck Expressway to Farmers and Linden boulevards and by 1834, the

JAM AIC A

Jamaica Rail Road completed its line to the township. Once Queens became part of the City of New York on Jan. 1, 1898, Jamaica became a county seat once again.

The transit hub has over 90 bus lines, the E, J, Z and F subway lines, and an AirTrain that connects to John F. Kennedy Airport.

By 1925, Jamaica had become a shopping hub.

“In the early 1900s, a lot of the farmlands were sold off because the families that lived there for 200 to 300 years started to die off,” said Antos. “The heirs to some of these families sometimes sold their land to developers for a lot of money.”

Planned communities were formed closer to Jamaica Estates and the houses were mostly Tudor-style, according to Antos.

“Then Jamaica Avenue became such a major commercial business district,” said Antos. “A lot of people worked and had their business on the avenue.”

As the neighborhood changed, the demographics did too, he said.

“It was a very Italian Roman Catholic and very Jewish neighborhood,” said Antos. “A lot of people from Manhattan and Brooklyn came into Jamaica and the immigration population started booming in the 1970s and 1980s because of immigration laws.”

The economic opportunities led to an increase in the African-American population, which has existed there since the early 1900s, and the migration of immigrants from Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean. By the late 1990s and 2000s, more IndoCaribbeans (mostly Guyanese), Southeast Asians (mostly Bangledeshis) and people from the Middle East (Pakistanis) started migrating to Jamaica.

“The food businesses started to be reflective of that,” Antos noted.

The 165 Business Improvement District, the Sutphin Business Improvement District, the Jamaica Center Business Improvement District and the Greater Jamaica Development Corp. are some of the entities that work to protect and grow the businesses in Jamaica.

“Our BID is going to continue to keep Jamaica Avenue clean and support our businesses,” said Trey Jenkins, a spokesman for the Jamaica Center BID founded in 1979. “Our BID will also focus on welcoming those who will be moving into the new apartment buildings throughout Downtown Jamaica to ensure that

any new residents know what the Avenue has to offer in terms of both shops old and new.”

“GJDC was founded over 50 years ago when New York City was going through one of its greatest recessions, and helped Downtown Jamaica become a key component of the borough, city and metropolitan region economies,” said Justin Rodger, interim president of the GJDC. “Since the historic rezoning in 2007, Downtown Jamaica has been undergoing a renaissance. The GJDC has nurtured $1 billion of private and public-sector investment that has created nearly six million square feet of new residential, hotel and retail space.”

The GJDC mission is to bolster businesses and enhance the quality of life for the residents and workers, according to Rodger.

“While the pandemic has forced us to temporarily re-prioritize objectives, we plan to emerge from this global crisis stronger than before,” Rodger added about the coronavirus.

The GJDC was formed in 1967, the 165 BID was formed in 1978 and the Sutphin BID was formed in 2004.

A Better Jamaica and the Jamaica Center for Arts & Learning are two of the cultural staples downtown.

“In the summer of 2006, I went to Forest Park and watched ‘The Wizard of Oz,’” said Greg Mays, the founder of A Better Jamaica. “So I decided I needed to start a nonprofit. In January of 2007, I incorporated A Better Jamaica.”

The GJDC was the fiscal sponsor for A Better Jamaica for six months, according to Mays.

“Shortly, thereafter, we got our own 501(c) 3 status,” said Mays. “We started out later that summer showing two movies ... the rest is history and now we are about to be up to 16 or 17 programs.

“Pre-pandemic, the AirTrain Jazz Festival had 34 live jazz shows from October to May. We have a dance festival, which is four consecutive Saturdays in June, and we have two movie festivals,” said Mays.

The festivals include “Family Movies in the Park,” which displays 16 family-friendly movies throughout the summer, and “Classic Film Fridays,” which showcases films from a particular actor, director or genre, also over the summer.

A Better Jamaica also includes a reading program that has senior-citizen tutors helping first-graders with continued on page 16

C M ANN page 13 Y K Page 13 QUEENS CHRONICLE, Thursday, November 11, 2021

Flushing Hospital Medical Center is proud to be the recipient of many nationally recognized Healthgrades awards

These awards were given to Flushing Hospital in recognition of the high-quality, person-centered care we deliver to our community.

For the ANNIVERSARY latest news visitEDITION qchron.com 43RD • 2021

Providing superior service ce to our patients and our community in a caring environment

QUEENS CHRONICLE, Thursday, November 11, 2021 Page 14

C M ANN page 14 Y K 43rd Anniversary Edition

Ridgewood: A history of history Dutch farmers, Baby Boomers’ families chose to stay

by Michael Gannon Editor

Like many places in Queens, what is now Ridgewood was the subject of disagreements between the descendents of English settlers to the north and Dutch settlers in Brooklyn.

But beginning in the late 19th century, it was German immigrants who put their stamp on the neighborhood with architecture, cultural organizations and even a proliferation of breweries.

Linda Monte and her husband, Steve, are with the Ridgewood Historical Society, which has preserved and runs tours of the Vander Ende-Onderdonk House, located on Flushing Avenue on the Brooklyn border. It is the oldest Dutch colonial stone house in the city, with construction beginning in 1709.

But Monte said it is not the only part of Ridgewood history that still comes alive — if you know where to look for it.

“My husband and I recently went to a Ger- The Vander Ende-Onderdonk House has held court in what is now the neighborhood of Ridgeman dance,” she said in an interview on MonPHOTO BY DEIRDRE BARDOLF wood for more than 300 years. day. “When German immigrants settled in Ridgewood, they created a lot of clubs that growth was the creation of the Ridgewood Avenue and Stier Place is the home of the Reservoir in present-day Highland Park, profocused on helping immigrants with language Ridgewood Democratic Club. viding a major water supply. The first two classes and cultural programs, like a mini On Oct. 13, 1916, Stier responded personalYMCA ... We went to this dance and half the basins were completed between 1856 and ly to a building in Whitestone when two of people I met said, ‘Oh, you live in Ridge- 1859, with a third added in 1891. his deputies tried to serve a The elevated Myrtle Avenue rail line, man with an eviction warwood? I lived in Ridgewood.’ ‘What part?’ ‘I lived in Ridgewood. Where did you live?’ ‘I which extended to the Queens border in rant. The deputies were 1889, opened the area up, as did trolley lines forced to retreat at the point grew up there. I moved.’

“There was a sense of pluralism, that a few years later. of a rifle.

Many German immigrants on Manhattan’s shared experience. Even though you have Stier, entering the building unarmed, was Lower East Side decided shot. Three New York City police officers different histories, people to move out and put down were wounded in a standoff that ended when from Ridgewood have that stakes across the river, officers, armed only with revolvers, borrowed shared experience. trading crowded tenements heavier weapons from a U.S. Navy vessel There’s an identity people for homes of their own in moored nearby and killed the suspect. Stier, have with Ridgewood places like Bushwick and 42, was dead when help was finally able to when they are born here, Ridgewood. whether you continue to reach him.

More than a dozen live here or not.”

But the architecture and the houses that breweries would spring Stier and others left behind made their marks.

In an interview this up along the border. So past summer, Monte said Taking a step further, one might say Ridgetoo did numerous knitting her husband, who moved wood has a history of history. Four districts mills. there with his family as a have been recognized by the city’s Land“One of the people I marks Preservation Commission, including: child, is considered pretty met at the dance had an much a lifer.

• the Stockholm Street Historic District, “I’ve only been there 40 Arbitration Rock allowed Queens uncle who worked in the designated 2000, which consists of 36 twoand Brooklyn to live together in eter- last of the knitting mills,” story brick rowhouses, two garages, and a stayears,” she said.

FILE PHOTO Monte said.

According to Wikipe- nal peace and harmony. ble built primarily from 1907 to 1910 along And she said the ties the only remaining brick street in Ridgewood; dia, the land originally was that people feel today apparently were as settled by the Lanape and Mespachtes tribes, • the Ridgewood North Historic District, with Dutch settlers negotiating a deed in 1638. strong for many in the 19th century. designated 2009, which includes 96 buildings, “Many of the farmers who sold their land built from 1908 to 1914; It stayed rural for well over a century with the became involved in the political life of RidgeDutch farmers in what is now Brooklyn and • the Ridgewood South Historic District, wood,” she said. “They didn’t just make a designated 2010, with a historic district that the English in Queens. Still on the site of the buck and move on, though some did. They has 210 buildings, including St. Matthias Onderdonk House is Arbitration Rock, which was one of the landmarks used in 1769 to were people who had an interest in the Roman Catholic Church, built in 1911 and community.” temporarily settle the boundary dispute 1912; and One famous example she cited was Paul between counties.

• the Central Ridgewood Historic District, Stier, a German immigrant who built hunIt all eventually came under British rule, designated 2014, including 990 buildings, dreds of houses in what is now the Central which ended after a somewhat more serious mostly brick rowhouses, constructed from Ridgewood District. He became the Queens and complicated dispute beginning formally 1906 to 1915 by various small builders.

County sheriff in 1916. The office he built for in the mid-1770s.

The Onderdonk House and the Ridgewood himself at the corner of what are now Putnam A great influence on the area’s eventual Theatre Building, built in 1916, are recog-

nized as individual landmarks.

The National Register of Historic Places recognizes 10 districts, including: • the 68th Avenue-64th Place Historic District; • Central Ridgewood Historic District; • Cornelia-Putnam Historic District; • Cypress Avenue East Historic District; • Cypress Avenue West Historic District; • Fresh Pond-Traffic Historic District; • Madison-Putnam-60th Place Historic District; • Seneca Avenue East Historic District; • Stockholm-DeKalb-Hart Historic District; and • Summerfield Street Row Historic District.

The Onderdonk House, the Evergreens Cemetery, and St. Matthias are listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Famous natives, according to Wikipedia, include Pedro Beato, who pitched for the New York Mets in 2011 and part of 2012; author Peter Daempfle; comedian Chris Distefano; musician and producer Joe Duplantier; actor Ron Eldard; singer Mitski; entertainer Jeannie Ortega; actor Reginald VelJohnson, who starred in the TV show “Family Matters” and the first two “Die Hard” movies; and actor John Ventimiglia.

Famous non-native residents have included Oscarwinning actor James Cagney; Oscar-nominated actress Rosie Perez, who attended school there; musician Tommy Ramone, an original member of the Ramones; Katie Sandwina, a circus strongwoman who opened a restaurant at 70-02 Cypress Hills St. in 1942; and Bob Sheppard, public address announcer for the New York Yankees for more than 50 years who also announced for football’s New York Q Giants and St. John’s University.

For the latest news visit qchron.com 43RD ANNIVERSARY EDITION • 2021

RID GEWOOD

The Ridgewood Reservoir supported massive resettlement and development in the 19th FILE PHOTO BY ISABELLA BRUNI century.

C M ANN page 15 Y K

Page 15 QUEENS CHRONICLE, Thursday, November 11, 2021

For the ANNIVERSARY latest news visitEDITION qchron.com 43RD • 2021

QUEENS CHRONICLE, Thursday, November 11, 2021 Page 16

C M ANN page 16 Y K 43rd Anniversary Edition

Jamaica leaves behind Colonial past continued from page 12 their reading skills.

In the late 1960s, the GJDC sought to restore the declining commercial corridor along Jamaica Avenue, so plans were made to restore the Queens Register of Titles and Deeds building, an imposing neo Renaissance structure built in 1898, according to Leonard Jacobs, the executive director of JCAL. The building — to be called the Jamaica Arts Center — was a symbol of Jamaica’s reawakening and as a magnet for thousands of office workers, shoppers and residents.

The center was grounded in the visual arts, performing arts and arts education and had leading visual artists such as Adolph Gottlieb, who was exhibited early on, added Jacobs.

Major performing artists, such as Dizzy Gillespie and The Boys Choir of Harlem, were also welcomed.

The Center pioneered one of the first arts-in-education partnerships between public schools and community-based groups in America; at the same time, the Center’s groundbreaking work with groups like Family Matters, Teen Reach and Stop the Violence established industry-wide

precedents for the use of arts to reach at-risk youth. Dozens of classes for both children and adults were offered weekly and every semester.

In 1997, the Jamaica Center for the Performing and Visual Arts celebrated its 25th anniversary by becoming the Jamaica Center for Arts & Learning. The following year, JCAL’s landmark building received a $3.6 million renovation and restoration. Two blocks from JCAL, a landmarked 1858 First Reformed Dutch Church was slated for demolition in 1975.

Once again, the community rallied to save it. For years, the GJDC maintained the structure as a plan emerged to refurbish it as a performing arts center. Through public funding, the $22 million project created a multi-use theatre with flexible seating for 400 and meeting rooms for the “JCAL campus.” In 2009, JPAC received the Lucy G. Moses Award, the New York Landmarks Conservancy’s highest honor for preservation.

Since 2010, JCAL has refined its focus further, from creating a yearly dance festival funded by the National Endowment for the Arts to designing residencies to visual and performing

artists. JCAL’s educational wing, the Arts Center Workshops, was rebranded as an innovative School of the Arts in the late 2010s. In 2020, in response to the Covid-19 pandemic, JCAL invested in technology to preserve and lay the foundation for new programs through live-streaming and social media.

St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church, purchased in 1902 and located at 89-26 168 St., was a rectory and barn, that was replaced by a small parish house. In 1903, the site was designated as a church.

“The church was built about 100 years ago for an African-American congregation because Grace Episcopal Church in Downtown Jamaica with the cemetery near King Manor, didn’t want Black people worshipping at their church,” said a planning expert and activist who didn’t want disclose his name.

The Grace Episcopal Church Complex, located at 155-15 Jamaica Ave., was built in 1734 but service has dated back to 1702 at a meetinghouse. The cemetery that sits on the church’s proprty also dates back to around 1734 and was officially consecrated in July 15, 1822.

GREATER RIDGEWOOD HISTORICAL SOCIETY

UPCOMING EVENTS Museum Tours: Every Saturday & Sunday Our Museum and grounds are open from 12-5 PM for tours

Candle Making Workshop: Sat., 11/13

The oldest continously serving Presbyterian Church in the United States is First Presbyterian Church of Jamaica, which was organized 359 years ago in 1662. The site of the church’s complex were once a combination of woodlands and farms, according to the church’s website.

FPCJ, located at 89-50 164 St., has a soup kitchen and most recently transformed its parking lot into a 174unit affordable housing complex after reaching out to the community to learn of its needs.

Jamaica is home to over 20 schools, academies, career educational centers and universities, one of which is York College, one of the younger senior colleges of the City University of New York schools.

“The idea was initially to put a liberal arts college in a minority community,” said Rob Parmet, a history professor at the school and the last original faculty member (55 years) at York College. “Students from Southeast Queens were not getting into the other CUNY schools.”

It was the local business community, including the GJDC, clergy and various politicians in 1966, that fought to get the school a permanent

campus in 1971, according to Marcia Moxam Comrie, a spokeswoman for York.

“We began in Bayside in rented facilities and the back of the Oakland Jewish Center’s Hebrew School,” said Parmet. “We had 51 faculty and 371 students.”

It took grit, fortitude and efforts to overcome the doubts of sister colleges and the university, said Parmet.

Mayor John Lindsay (1966 to 1973) ultimately was the linchpin that helped to get the school established.

“Gov. Nelson Rockefeller cast doubts about our viability,” said Parmet. “The City and State of New York were in bankruptcy.”

Sister schools like City College and Queens College were worried about funding for their own schools.

“Fortunately, we had an indomitable president in Milton Bassin ... He stood up to the forces in CUNY, ” added Parmet.

The college goes beyond its liberal arts roots and has a strong nursing and business program, among its over 50 majors, according to Parmet, who would like to see the school add dormitories, an academic village and a Q school of pharmacology.

Assemblyman Andrew Hevesi Celebrates 43 years of the Queens Chronicle

Photos with St. Nicholas: Sat., 12/4 Take a photo with St. Nicholas! Get a goody bag, cider, & cookies!

Winter Open House Weekend: Sat 12/11 - Sun., 12/12 Free entry to museum to see our holiday decorations and exhibit

December Evening Tour: Sat., 12/11

©2021 M1P • GRHS-079909

Make homemade hand dipped candles

Assemblyman Andrew Hevesi 28th A.D.

70-50 Austin Street, Suite 118 Forest Hills, NY 11375 Phone: (718) 263-5595

E-mail: hevesia@nyassembly.gov

ANDH-079892

January Evening Tour: Sat., 1/8 Tour our house by candlelight

February Evening Tour: Sat., 2/12 Tour our house by candlelight

March Evening Tour: Sat., 3/12 Tour our house by candlelight EVENTS ARE SUBJECT TO CHANGE. CHECK OUR WEBSITE AND SOCIAL MEDIA FOR UPDATES.

GRHS MEMBERS RECEIVE FREE ADMISSION TO MOST EVENTS. BECOME A MEMBER TODAY Vander Ende-Onderdonk House c.1709

Tickets and More Information Available Online:

ONDERDONK-HOUSE.EVENTBRITE.COM

Congratulations to the Queens Chronicle for 43 successful years!

Looking forward to many more years on paper, online, in print and delivered to our homes!

Assemblywoman

Stacey Pheffer Amato 718-945-9550

STAA-078478

For the latest news visit qchron.com 43RD ANNIVERSARY EDITION • 2021

Tour our house by candlelight

C M ANN page 17 Y K

continued from page 8 78th Street from Northern Boulevard to 34th Avenue. We doubled the size of Travers Park,” he said. “Over the last 12 years, it has really changed the face of Jackson Heights in major ways.”

At first, area residents were opposed to the plan, which involved the removal of 48 parking spaces, Dromm said. “Now, if we tried to reverse that, they would protest against it. People have seen the vision.”

The councilman, soon to be term-limited out, added, “It’s part of my legacy.”

Dromm, who has been a progressive leader in the borough for over 20 years, including 12 in the City Council, will also likely be remembered for his work on behalf of the LGBTQ community. Dromm, among the first openly gay elected officials in the city, years earlier convened the first meeting of a proposed Queens gay pride parade, following the murder of a young gay man named Julio Rivera in a local schoolyard, the victim of his sexuality.

Recently, the area has been torn apart by several events. In April, a huge fire ravaged a building at 88th Street and 34th Avenue, displacing over 400 residents. “The whole building was vacated, with people placed all over the city,” Dromm said. “We’re at the point now where most are settled in apartments in the city, including the Bronx and Far Rockaway. I’d love to see some of them back in the neighborhood.”

Dromm added that it will take “at least a year or two to fix the building.”

And Jackson Heights was among the most hard-hit by the Covid-19 pandemic.

Cases in ZIP code 11372, one of several that cover Jackson Heights, were among the highest of any ZIP codes in the city.

On a more positive note, the neighborhood has frequently made its way into the world of pop culture. Alfred Mosher Butts, a former resident, co-invented the Scrabble word game. A street sign at the corner of 35th Avenue and 81st Street includes numerical subscripts, imitating the tiles bearing the game’s letter values.

Besides Butts, the area’s residents have included Chester Carlson, who invented the Xerox copy machine; film legend Charlie Chaplin; actors Carroll O’Connor of Archie Bunker fame, John Leguizamo and Lucy Liu; and Gene Simmons of the rock group Kiss. The neighborhood also served as the setting of the television series “Ugly Betty,” and in the film “Coming to America” fictional singer Randy Watson is referred to as “Jackson Heights’ own.”

The neighborhood is even the subject of “In Jackson Heights,” an award-winning documentary, made by filmmaker Frederick Wiseman in 2015.

Featured prominently in it, Dromm, reflecting on the area’s diversity, says, “Let’s salute that and let’s all be proud of what we Q have accomplished.”

Established 1852

St. Mary’s Community Mausoleum

One of the greatest gifts you can give to those you love is a sense of security – the knowledge that you have taken care of everything.

St. Michael’s is a religious cemetery open to people of all faiths.

For more information including a free Resource Guide call (718) 278-3240 or visit us at www.stmichaelscemetery.com

Bakery Shop and Takeout Restaurant

O.B.’s Bakery serves an irresistible selection of fresh-baked goods and dishes every day. Choose specialties from cakes and pies to West Indian and American dishes.

Discover fresh baked goods every day at our bakery shop. In business for over 30 years.

Call us at: 866-746-0605 Website: www.obsbakery.com

165-76 Baisley Blvd., Jamaica, NY 11434

72-02 Astoria Boulevard East Elmhurst, NY 11370 718 278-3240 STMC-078728

For the ANNIVERSARY latest news visit qchron.com 43RD EDITION • 2021

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY TO THE QUEENS CHRONICLE NOW TAKING HOLIDAY ORDERS CATERING SERVICES AVAILABLE

St. Mary’s Community Mausoleum

©2021 M1P • OB’S-079894

Wedding Cakes - Seasonal Pies - Catering Services Available

Page 17 QUEENS CHRONICLE, Thursday, November 11, 2021

Jackson Heights, evolving

QUEENS CHRONICLE, Thursday, November 11, 2021 Page 18

C M ANN page 18 Y K 43rd Anniversary Edition

The many names of Queens Village Train station turns rural town into popular destination

by Naeisha Rose Associate Editor

What’s in a name? Before settling on Queens Village in the 1920s, the middle-class to upper-middle class neighborhood in Eastern Queens had a few. It was called Little Plains in the 1640s because of its geography. It was named Brushville in the 1820s after a famous blacksmith, and sometime between the 1850s and 1870s it became Inglewood because of a wealthy mayor and then simply Queens. The monikers became confusing for early New York riders of the Long Island Rail Road, because of the similar sounding town of Englewood in New Jersey and the borough’s county designation, so the commuter rail company added the word “Village” to Queens, the name stuck and the rest is history.

Dutch colonizers may have secured the title to the land of Queens County in 1639 from the Merrick (interpreted by settlers to mean peace, oyster bed, at the barren land or plains country) and Canarsie (the fenced in place) Native American tribes, but the two offshoots of the Algonquin, the nomadic hunter-gathering indigenous group, had ancestry in what Europeans called the “New World” that dates back to over 12,000 years ago,.

“They are part of the Algonquin grouping,” said area historian Maureen Grey. “In Long Island and Queens, they used the area for hunting.”

The Algonquin tribes hunted for beavers, fished for lobsters and oysters and gathered clamshells to make wampum, woven beads that were

used as ceremonial tributes and later money.

The most northern part of Queens Village, which is on Union Turnpike, sits on the “terminal moraine” left by the forward edge of the glacier that scraped through New York and New England, producing a mostly flat prairie, according to “The Story of Queens Village” by Vincent Seyfried.

“Queens Village was very open and very few people lived there from the 1600s to the 1800s,” said Jason Antos, the interim executive director of the Queens Historical Society.

“For a lot of people, it is very surprising to learn that it was a rural area until the railroad cut through there.”

In 1609, two years after the English were established in Virginia, the Dutch East India Co. hired English sailor Henry Hudson with the goal of sailing to the Pacific Ocean to reach India for spices, but the navigator ended up in what is now called the Hudson River next to modern-day Manhattan (New Amsterdam in 1625). The Dutch later established the Dutch West India Co. and in 1639, 30 families were brought to the Americas with a few establishing themselves at outposts in Queens. Despite 40 years of rule over Manhattan and outposts, like Queens, the Dutch failed to see the economic advantage of New York City and let it fall into British rule in 1664.

As New York City became industrialized in the 1800s, transportation developed, and the Brooklyn and Jamaica Railroad was established in 1832. It opened at a stop called the Flushing Avenue station in Queens

For the latest news visit qchron.com 43RD ANNIVERSARY EDITION • 2021

QU EE NS VILLAGE

Antun’s Restaurant in 1945, left, and the popular catering hall in the present day.

Antos.

Post-Civil War, there were no professionals like lawyers and doctors, according to Seyfried’s book.

Jamaica near Springfield Boulevard had pubs during the Revolutionary War, according to Stiller.

“Springfield Boulevard is called that because of the Springfield rifles,” said Stiller, who moved to the area in 1965 and has studied the town’s history. “It was a rifle range where they would practice.”

Modern Queens Village has food and drink chains (Popeyes, Dunkin’ Donuts and McDonald’s), mom-andQueens Village train station near Hollis. PHOTO COURTESY QUEENS HISTORICAL SOCIETY pop shops (hair salons, barbershops, pharmacies, dry cleaners and beauty and the station renamed Inglewood stores), supermarkets with ethnic Village located at Springfield Boulevard and 218th Street on March 1, in 1871, according to The New York sections (Caribbean, Asian and 1837. It was renamed the De Lancey Times. The station was moved to Jer- Latin), and eateries reflective of its diverse people. icho Turnpike. During this time, resiAvenue station by June.

“It’s used to be very German, Ital“Farmers needed supplies,” said dents referred to the suburb as both Queens and Inglewood, which is ian, Irish and Jewish and other than Grey about the purpose of having the reflected in an 1873 map, where both some of the Jewish population, they train station in the neighborhood. By Nov. 27, the station was moved to names are used. Either in 1879 or mostly moved to Long Island once African Americans moved in during Hempstead Turnpike and 212th 1881, the station was called Queens.

On Sept. 24, 1924, the station was the 1970s — it was White Flight,” Street and it was renamed Brushville moved back to Springfield Boule- said Stiller. station.

The Immigration and Nationality “The person who owned the most vard and renamed Queens Village.

Act of 1965 opened the doorway to land was Thomas Brush,” said Grey The name remained for both the staCaribbean (Jamaican, Haitian and about the blacksmith who was tion and the community.

“The whole purpose of putting it Trinidadian), Latin American and responsible for the change of name for the town and train station. Some- at Springfield and Jamaica was to East Asian immigrants in the 1970s, time between 1852 and 1856, the res- attract the sales of the plots of land,” and then Guyanese, Southeast Asian and Middle Eastern immigrants in idents of Brushville voted for the said Grey.

The Q1, 27, 36 and 88 bus lines the late 1990s and early 2000s, town name and the station to be have a depot next to the train station, according to Stellar. called Queens, but it was still collo“You will find Jamaican, Guyaquially known as Brushville into which had upgrades in 2013. nese and Haitian restaurants all over A Queens Village Street Festival 1870, according to Seyfried’s book.

Queens Village,” said Stiller.

The station was closed in October that was supposed to take place this The catering hall Antun’s of year will be pushed to June 25, 2022 1871.

Queens Village is one of the mainat the train station.

“There was a financial collapse in “In the 1920s you saw a suburban stays of the area. the 1870s,” said Grey.

“We opened in January 1945,” Alfred Wood, a former Brooklyn housing boom,” said Antos. “It was mayor, bought up large plots of farm- partially related to the 1918 flu pan- said Mickey King, the owner of the land in the neighborhood in the demic and people wanted to get away catering hall. “Mr. John Antun initially opened up Antun’s. He liked 1860s and had his estate, the town and move into a less populated area.”

Development companies bought the area, it had great development, up the family farms that were in people were moving into the area and it was across the street from the Queens Village and turned them into train. It was very happening.” housing developments.

Before the hall was used for cater“They divvied up the old farming, it was a Gimbels Department lands, the plains and the swamps into blocks of lots,” said Antos. “They Store, then a rival to Macy’s. The started installing sewer systems, offices where guests book weddings, or schools book proms and elected roadways and electrical systems and officials book political events used to created a business district from belong to the prominent Creed famiscratch.”

Before the housing boom, there ly. The building dates to the 1700s.

“The Creed family owned half of were self-sustaining farms, blackQueens Village or more,” said King. smiths, hayseed and cattle farms and wagon makers, according to John “A small gas station was turned into Stiller, a former president of the our ballroom.”

Under King’s leadership an outQueens Village Civic Association.

“You had all the typical Colonial door courtyard was added. professions until the late 1800s,” said COURTESY PHOTOS continued on page 23

C M ANN page 19 Y K

NEW YORK STATE ASSEMBLYWOMAN

JENIFER RAJKUMAR

Page 19 QUEENS CHRONICLE, Thursday, November 11, 2021

Congratulations Queens Chronicle on your 43rd Anniversary!

BESP-078606

Limited time only Expires 11/30/21

JENR-079902

38th Assembly District of New York

– Paid for by Jenifer Rajkumar for New York –

SAPR-079083

• Five-Star Nursing & Rehabilitation Facility awarded by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

• Administrator member of American College of Health Administrators • Administrator recipient of CMS Outstanding Achievement award for Reducing Hospitalizations • Administrator is 2016 Recipient of Lily Leadership Award

Sapphire Center For Rehabilitation & Nursing of Central Queens

For the ANNIVERSARY latest news visit qchron.com 43RD EDITION • 2021

AWARDS:

QUEENS CHRONICLE, Thursday, November 11, 2021 Page 20

C M ANN page 20 Y K 43rd Anniversary Edition

LIC is the ‘heart of New York City’ Center of art, culture and innovation with a can-do spirit

by Deirdre Bardolf Associate Editor

Long Island City’s spirit of innovation and creativity can be traced back to its earliest days. It was destined to be an urban hub since its residents voted overwhelmingly in favor of consolidating with New York City in 1897 as a rejection of political corruption and failing infrastructure.

“Their future was tied to the city,” said Kara Schlichting, a historian and assistant professor at Queens College.

That vote resulted in how the Queens and Nassau counties of today came to be.

Although Long Island City was an industrial center already with asphalt and gas plants, light factories and the growing Steinway & Sons piano company, the municipality had mounting debt and little regulation. In 1876, Long Island City had over $1 million in debt, compared to only $10 million for all of New York State.

Teachers and police had not been paid in months and schools and roads could not be built. They needed the help of a new city government.

Following the consolidation of the five boroughs, Long Island City growth catapulted.

The Queensboro Bridge was built in 1901, the 7 line, the first subway line in Queens, was built in 1915 and the Long Island Rail Road was expanding to create further interconnectedness for LIC and the rest of the city.

Bob Singleton, historian and executive director of the Greater Astoria Historical Society, recognizes Long Island City’s importance to the whole city from the colonial days when it was just farms and tide mills for flour.

“Tide mills are what saved New York City,” said Singleton. “ If you look at the New York City coat of arms today, that’s exactly what you’ll see — two barrels and a tide mill ... there was this ‘cando’ spirit.”

Then in the 1800s, a German-American piano maker was building a company town in what was still part of LIC at the time.

“Steinway helped make New York City the intellectual and cultural capital of the world,” said Singleton. He calls Long Island City a “cradle of creativity.”

LIC remained a center for arts and culture through the 20th century.

In 1961, Japanese-American artist and landscape architect Isamu Noguchi moved in and purchased studio space on the corner of 10th Street and 33rd Road.

It was a convenient place to be because of the stone and metal suppliers and other artisan shops that were there at the time, said Brett Littman, director of The Noguchi Museum.

Ten years later, Noguchi’s friend and fellow sculptor Mark di Suvero opened a studio there as well; he founded Socrates Sculpture Park with a coalition of artists and community members, said Littman.

The Long Island City skyline, seen here from Anable Basin, is constantly evolving with new develPHOTO BY MICHAEL SHAIN opments, as the area remains a hub for industry and transportation.

“Isamu Noguchi set a certain tone for artists’ presence in the neighborhood, quietly transforming and revitalizing the abandoned industrial building and lot he purchased into an oasis for future generations, while maintaining a subtle profile and minimal interference with its surroundings.”

At about the same time, the Institute for Art and Urban Resources Inc. opened. It later became PS1 Contemporary Art Center and then MoMA PS1 once it became an affiliate of The Museum of Modern Art in 2001.

Elizabeth Lusskin is the president of the Long Island City Partnership, a neighborhood development organization.

“LIC is at once true to its past, and constantly evolving,” she said in an email.

“This is a place where creativity thrives — whether in the arts, food, design or cuttingedge tech — and where you can make a true live-work home. World-class museums, parks, and transportation have attracted a highly diverse community of companies, residents and innovators in a true ‘city within the city.’”

Edjo Wheeler is the executive director at Culture Lab LIC at The Plaxall Gallery, which gives space and support to arts and culture organizations and nonprofits.

“It’s not always immediately apparent how many hidden gems are in this area, how many jazz clubs and musicians and artists are embedded into this neighborhood,” he said.

“In the ’80s, it was SoHo and then it was Williamsburg in the late ’90s and then in the 2000s it was Bushwick,” he said. “Now it is Queens’ turn.”

But even in Long Island City, the spaces

For the latest news visit qchron.com 43RD ANNIVERSARY EDITION • 2021

LONG ISL AND CITY

available for arts and culture are starting to get “stretched thin,” said Wheeler.

“So, either we all come together and we’re able to solidify and help grow the arts and cultural organizations that are here now, and it remains one of the hotbeds of art and culture moving forward or we don’t come together, we don’t get the attention of the broader community, and the arts organizations continue to get squeezed out.”

“I personally believe this is going to be a time of expansive growth,” he said.

Plaxall, Inc. is a manufacturing company that has been operating in LIC for over 75 years, founded by Louis Pfohl. It donates the space in which Culture Lab operates today.

“Louis Pfohl was a true visionary, but we don’t think even he could have imagined how LIC has evolved,” said his granddaughter, Paula Kirby, managing director of Plaxall, in an email.

“What was once an area solely devoted to industrial manufacturing — where driving on the sidewalks was a regular occurrence and babies in strollers and dog walkers were nowhere to be seen — has transformed into a neighborhood of small businesses and maker spaces, families and schools, nonprofits and civic institutions, waterfront parks, and arts and culture,” Kirby said.

Seeing babies in strollers is just one selling point that draws young families to Long Island City today.

George Estreich is a designer and artist with two children, 9 and 7 years old, in Long Island City. He and his wife lived in Brooklyn, then moved to New Paltz, NY, to start a family but ultimately landed in LIC 10 years ago.

“It really jumped out to us because of the

proximity to Manhattan and the inherent beauty of the neighborhood,” he said.

“We saw parents with strollers, streaming in every direction,” he recalled of their first visits to scope out the neighborhood. That, along with the area’s schools, made it a great place to raise their children, who now have a “solid core” of kids they have grown up with in the neighborhood.

One thing he loves about the area is how quickly they can get into the city, even just to visit the New York Public Library or go to dinner. Now, he’s considering guitar lessons for his daughter in the West Village.

“It’s so easy to get there and I’m not restricted by just what Long Island City has to offer,” he said.

Shawn Mazzarone, a real estate agent in LIC who lived there for three years, knows that proximity to Manhattan is just one of the many draws.

“In the ’90s, there was no reason to be there other than that you live close to Manhattan and now there are dozens of reasons to live there,” he said.

“The neighborhood is not like a little brother or little sister to Manhattan anymore. I think that it stands on its own.”

Mazzarone said that prices have begun to reflect that realization as the average residential purchase price per square foot is about $1,100 and a one-bedroom apartment currently goes for at least $3,000 a month and as much as $5,000 for a two-bedroom.

“People have found out about Long Island City and all that it has to offer and what a great place it is to live,” he said.

Since moving to the Upper East Side of Manhattan, Mazzarone said he misses the small-town feel that LIC still manages to offer, like knowing the employees at the local deli and grocery store and always getting a seat at his favorite bar, which was Gantry Bar & Kitchen on Vernon Boulevard.

He said that although some new high-rises are going up, he does not see much more residential construction coming to the area, especially near the waterfront where air rights have been purchased, and therefore that community vibe can remain.

Over the past 10 years, Estreich, the designer, has noticed that the area was drawing more residents and tourists, like at Gantry State Park and the restaurants they used to frequent without a reservation.

“I feel like we’re getting a ton of people coming from Long Island and coming from Eastern Queens,” he said. “The secret is definitely out at this point.”

But living in the only townhouse remaining on his Fifth Street in LIC, and in close proximity to the subway lines, parks, East River, Long Island Rail Road and the Long Island Expressway, Estreich said he cannot imagine going anywhere else.

“It’s absurdly convenient,” he said. “We’re Q in this perfect, charming spot here.”

C M ANN page 21 Y K

is proud to be named one of America’s

Best 250 Hospitals by Healthgrades This is one of many awards Jamaica Hospital has received for delivering high-quality care

Page 21 QUEENS CHRONICLE, Thursday, November 11, 2021

Jamaica Hospital Medical Center

Other recent awards include

For the ANNIVERSARY latest news visitEDITION qchron.com 43RD • 2021

Serving our patients and the community in a way that is second to none

For the latest news visit qchron.com 43RD ANNIVERSARY EDITION • 2021

QUEENS CHRONICLE, Thursday, November 11, 2021 Page 22

C M ANN page 22 Y K 43rd Anniversary Edition

Whitestone: hidden suburbia Neighborhood was once a hotspot for celebrities

by Katherine Donlevy Associate Editor

Whitestone is a quiet, residental community that has been neatly sandwiched between its namesake bridge and the Throgs Neck since the latter opened in 1957, but it once was known as a bustling spot popularized by movie stars and the famous.

The list of notable people who once lived in Whitestone goes on and on. Movie stars, writers and playwrights are just a few of the opulent people who lived on the shores of the neighborhood.

The Towers at Beechhurst, located at 160-15 Powells Cove Blvd., has housed plenty of celebrities.

The landmarked complex, which was converted into a co-op in 1988, according to its website, had once been the Beechhurst Towers Hotel.

Charlie Chaplin may have been the most notable celebrity to have stayed in the building during the 1920s. During that time, he was shooting silent movies at Astoria Studios on the other side of the borough. Other vaudeville and film stars, like Mary Pickford, the Marx Brothers and W.C. Fields, were also famous guests.

Walt Whitman wrote poetry on the waterfront, according to old diary entries. He is recorded as saying, “every morning I am kissed by the sun coming through my window at the bay of Whitestone.”

Arthur Hammerstein, a Broadway legend, built a Tudor-style home in Beechhurst in 1924, the year before he began building the Ed Sullivan Theatre in Manhattan.

“It was a beautiful old house,” state Sen. Toby Stavisky, a longtime Whitestoner, recalled of the home.

Stavisky and her husband, who was then the area’s assemblymember, led the efforts to landmark the “lavish” home during the late ’70s and ’80s. At the time, it was known as “Wildflower,” named after Hammerstein’s popular 1923 musical.

The Staviskys were successful in their efforts, and the home was landmarked in 1982. However, it was heavily damaged by a 1994 fire before it could be totally restored.

“There was a fire before they were able to complete it,” Stavisky said. “The owner of the building let it become a derelict, empty structure.”

The home was eventually refurbished and split into apartments.

It’s one of the few estates that are still standing, she said. Many had dotted the shoreline, but were torn down and replaced for larger housing developments. Wildflower is now part of a gated condo community and surrounded by townhouses, though the refurbished version of the building does not include the popular restaurant that had been attached to the home until the 1980s, Ripples on the Water.

“Often when we were campaigning and I was tired, we would stop at Ripples for dinner,” Stavisky recalled nostalgically. It had been one of her favorite places to frequent during her four decades living in Whitestone.

Stavisky and her husband were one of the first tenants of Cryder House, located just down the block from the Wildflower estate. The

An aerial shot of the Whitestone Bridge depicts its namesake neighborhood HISTORIC AMERICAN ENGINEERING RECORD / LIBRARY OF CONGRESS and the East River.

A scene from 1906 shows what is now 14th Avenue looking west from 150th Street. Today, it is a commercial corriPHOTO COURTESY JASON ANTOS dor one block from the Cross Island Parkway. couple moved into the top floor of the complex in 1964 and snagged the last one-bedroom apartment left for rent. The building would not be converted into a co-op until the ’80s, she said, when the whole neighborhood experienced a large conversion to that type of housing.

By the mid-20th century, Whitestone had largely become a residential community and the stars no longer turned to it as a vacation destination. That can be attributed to the major transportation switch in the 1930s, according to Tim Keogh, an assistant history professor at Queensborough Community College.

“In 1932, the Whitestone [Long Island Rail Road] station shut down, and in 1939 the Whitestone Bridge is completed,” Keogh said.

“The expressway that’s connected to it cut up parts of Whitestone to the grid it is today.”

The rail line had provided a direct line to Manhattan that was now cut off, Keogh explained. The change reduced Whitestone’s appeal to the upper middle class as a destination away from the city.

Some of the rich stayed, as well as their country clubs and some estates, but middle class and working class were ushered in.

The lack of mass transportation, but access to vehicular routes, led to Whitestone transforming into a

family-oriented town. Residents needed cars to get around, and the suburban atmosphere became a perfect place to raise a family, Keogh said.

“Being outside of public transit doesn’t bring the eye of developers,” he continued, adding that Whitestone eventually become popular for people looking for a “quieter element.”

Kim Cody, the president of the Whitestone Taxpayers Civic Association, moved to the neighborhood in 1955 with his family when he was just 3 years old. He came from Manhattan, found the suburban sprawl of Whitestone perfect for his childhood, and decided to raise his family there as well. His wife, Marlene, shared the same sentiment, and the two live in her childhood home on Third Avenue.

“It was a fabulous place to grow up,” Cody said. “The community is sitll a fabulously great community and it was a great place to raise my sons.”

Whitestone has certainty changed since his adolescence, he said, to become a more congested community. He recalled spending his younger days running through backyards to get to friends’ houses, because there weren’t any

fences and Whitestone felt like a hamlet.

Today, Whitestone could be considered an “outlet,” Cody said.

There are more homes than there were decades ago, and more people want to move into the neighborhood.

Alfredo Centola, the president of the We Love Whitestone Civic Association, said the increased congestion is a side effect of the community being so wonderful.

“The beauty of Whitestone is the fact you have a suburban feel in an urban environment,” said he said.

The issue of overdevelopment is a beast the neighborhood is fighting against, particularly splitting one-family homes into multiple units, Centola said.

That suburban feel extends into the way the community interacts with one another, Centola continued. The way neighbors invest in small businesses, attend community events and advocate for their neighborhood contributed to his decision to move to Whitestone in the mid-1990s and start his civic association in 2015.

“It says it all when people who grow up in the neighborhood want to buy a house in the neighborQ hood,” Centola said.

WH ITE STON E

C M ANN page 23 Y K

Ave.; the Bell Park Jewish Center at 231-10 Hillside Ave.; Queens Reformed Church at 219-41 Jamaica Ave.; Our Lady of Lourdes at New Greater Bethel Ministries at 215-32 Jamaica Ave.; the Center of Islamic Studies at 206-09 Jamaica Ave.; and St. Joseph’s Episcopal Church at 99-10 217 Lane are just a few of the religious institutions that have storied histories and or recently put down roots in the community. But one of the largest religious institutions in the area is the Little Sisters of the Poor Convent, which is tucked away and hidden from plain view by grey brick walls at 110-39 Springfield Blvd.

“The convent has been here for a while,” said Ishmael, who remembers seeing it since he moved to Queens Village 35 years ago.

In October 1900, the sisters of the church purchased the 11-acre land on what was called the Brown Farm. Contractor Charles W. Murphy started work on April 1901, which took 300 men to complete, according to “The Story of Queens Village.”

The Roman Catholic Little Sisters of the Poor was founded in Rennes, France in 1840 and later moved to a building in Brooklyn, but the new facility was too confined. Queens Village, with its vast farmlands, proved to be the ideal choice for the convent.

“We had a home in Bushwick first, but they were looking for a place out in the country as a place of training for our sisters that were just learning,” said Sister Michele Mary.

In 1970, Little Sisters of the Poor, which has been caring for the elderly poor, opened up the Queens of Peace nursing home at 11030 211 St. “They learn all kinds of things,” said Mary. “They learn about the church history, the doctrine, spirituality and caring for the elderly.”

Novitiates have come from Ireland, Samoa, Tonga, Korea and the Philippines and other countries.

The biggest difference from 1901 and now at the convent is the use of technology to help the elderly, said Sister Mary.

“The use of technology should be to help us,” said Mary. “It shouldn’t be used to interfere with our life of prayer and Q work.”

BRIT-079900

Free pregnancy test.

Extensive material assistance program for mothers and their families during their time of need.

We follow Covid-19 regulations

By Appointment Only!

Volunteers and donors urgently needed.

Newly Renovated, Larger Location

Informative and emotional support for those faced with an unplanned pregnancy.

Please contact us at: www.thebridgetolife.org 14-02 124th Street, College Point, NY 11356 • 718.463.1810

CATALINA GUTTILLA CBR, CIREC REAL ESTATE BROKER/OWNER OFFICE: 516.484.2999 MOBILE: 347.723.2573

EMAIL: catalinafi nehomes@gmail.com WEBSITE: lirealtyhomes.com

“Amazing! Amazing! person. Genuinely takes care of all people she encounters personally and professionally. Wouldn’t use anybody else!

10 out of 10.”

—Dan Gordon

Your Trusted Real Estate Neighborhood Broker

Real Estate Homes LLC 2874 Stevens Street • Oceanside

RESIDENTIAL/COMMERCIAL SALES & RENTALS Bilingual: English/Spanish ©2021 M1P • CATG-079879

Congratulations Queens Chronicle on your 43rd Anniversary!

CONGRESSMAN CONG

GREGORY W. MEEKS

5th Congressional Co District of New York

@GregMeeksNYC

– Paid for and authorized by Friends for Gregory Meeks –

For the ANNIVERSARY latest news visit qchron.com 43RD EDITION • 2021

All Life is sacred and deserves to be protected

Find out how we can save you the most $$$.

Call us for a FREE true market Appraisal today.

GREM-079887

continued from page 18 “We do over 150 weddings a year,” said King.

Earlier this year, Antun’s added honeymoon (Sandals partnership), family travel (Sandals’ Beaches packages) and Disney travel packages to its repertoire.

“We also added to-go catering off-site at your office or house last year,” said King, who catered a Constitution Party for King Manor Museum in Jamaica. “We will also be doing retail by selling to supermarkets.

We are most famous for our Caribbean food.”

The catering hall had many requests for oxtail, pepperpot, rice and peas, mango salmon with roasted potatoes and jerk chicken during the pandemic.

“Next year we will be doing Caribbean Plates by Antun’s,” said King. “There will be the rice and peas, jerk chicken and plantains, and other Caribbean-inspired meals.”

In 1945, the catering hall mostly served food for German, Italian, Irish and Jewish cuisines.

“It’s still our community and we cater to our community,” said King. “They are a part of what make Queens Village special. I love Queens Village. It is not Jamaica, with the hustle and bustle with tons of stores and markets — overcrowded. It’s not too industrial and we have our own little train station.

We love being in our little town. We have people coming here since I was born.”

King’s favorite guest was former President Clinton and his wife’s favorite guest was Sarah Jessica Parker.

“Right before the ‘Sex and the City’ movie came out, she walked in and it was so surreal,” said King. “She was here and Matthew Broderick. It was like slow motion.

The wind blew as the door opened and her hair blew back. It was like a movie. Then she ran after her son in her 6-inch Manolo Blahniks. She was an absolute sweetheart.

We can’t wait to watch the reboot.”

Mo Ishmael, the president of the Queens Village Civic Association, noted that the area keeps evolving.

“Recently with the change in demographics you have temples and mosques,” he said.

The Shri Maha Kali Durga Mandir, a hindu temple at 92-66 Springfield Blvd.; the Sikh Center of New York at 222-28 95

Page 23 QUEENS CHRONICLE, Thursday, November 11, 2021

Queens Village’s history

Congratulations to the Queens Chronicle on their 43rd Anniversary

NOW OPEN FOR BREAKFAST, LUNCH & DINNER WITH 2-HR FREE PARKING Flushing’s Hidden Gem Reasonably Priced

RATED

#2 OF 589

RESTAURANTS IN FLUSHING, QUEENS

BY TRIPADVISOR

RATED #1 ON ©2021 M1P • MAGN-079800

QUEENS CHRONICLE, Thursday, November 11, 2021 Page 24

C M ANN page 24 Y K

Established in 2008, we take pride in offering delicious Italian Dishes

MAGNA I t a l i a n Join us at

by Tony Pecora

R i s t o r a n t e

35-25 FARRINGTON STREET

718-445-3352

www.magnarestaurant.com

Please search for us on these websites:

Often referred to as “Flushing’s Hidden Gem,” Magna is proud to be highly rated on TripAdvisor and OpenTable.

Eat well.

Stay safe!

Lunch Prix-Fixe Menu $24.50++ CHOICE OF 1 APPETIZER SOUP OF THE DAYCAPRESE SALAD

Home Made Mozzarella With Fresh Tomato And Basil

INSALATA MISTA Mixed Greens Salad

CHOICE OF 1 PASTA OR ENTREE TAGLIATELLE CON PESTO Ribbon Pasta With Basil Pesto Sauce

For the latest news visit qchron.com 43RD ANNIVERSARY EDITION • 2021

– OR –

MARCO HOTEL RATED ONE OF THE BEST IN FLUSHING!

FUSILLI ALLA BOLOGNESE Fusilli Pasta With Traditional Italian Meat Sauce

– OR –

– OR –

SPAGHETTI E POMODORO

POLLO ALLA MARSALA

Spaghetti With Fresh Cherry Tomato Sauce

Chicken Marsala

– OR – MELANZANE ALLA PARMIGIANA Eggplant Parmigiana

– OR – PESCE DEL GIORNO Today’s Fish Special

CHOICE OF 1 DESSERT OR CHOCOLATEVANILLA GELATO RASPBERRY SORBET

PARKING LOT ADDRESS

Book your room now Get

35-15 Farrington St., Next to Rest.

Dinner Menu at Magna Restaurant

DOORS CLOSE AT 10:00 PM CLOSED MONDAYS

10% OFF