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TOP: Photo of the construction of the Queensboro Bridge in 1909.
MIDDLE: Jackson Heights was the first garden apartment community.
BOTTOM: The Rocket Thrower is one of the works of art created for the 1964 World's Fair.
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The Post War Years Ever Changing Borough
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The most momentous event in the history of Queens occurred in 1909 when the long planned Queensboro Bridge was finally opened. |
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Rapid Expansion
The sudden expansion of rapid transit changed Queens forever. When the
Pennsylvania Railroad purchased the Long Island Rail Road in 1900, then
electrified it through Queens in 1905-1908, and opened the Penn Tunnels
under the East River in 1910, it brought virtually the whole of Queens
within the suburban commuting zone of Manhattan. A record number of new communities were founded at this time. Forest Hills
(1906,) South Ozone Park (1907,) Howard Beach (1911,) and Kew Gardens
(1912,) were some of the towns that were built.
The most momentous event in the history of Queens occurred in 1909 when
the
long planned Queensboro Bridge was finally opened. This ended the
century
old isolation of the county and dependence on ferries. A whole new road
system grew up to accommodate the traffic, and Queens Boulevard, a 200
feet
wide roadway, was laid out as the main arterial highway of the new
borough.
From 1915 onward, much of northern and southwestern Queens came within
reach
of the New York City subway system. In June 1915 the Interborough
service
opened to Long Island City and later Queensboro
Plaza (1916,) and Astoria
( 1917.) Another branch extended along Queens Boulevard and the newly
laid
out Roosevelt Avenue, reaching Corona in 1917 and Flushing in 1928. In
southern Queens, the Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company built an elevated
line
along Liberty Avenue through Ozone Park and Woodhaven to Richmond Hill
in
1915 and along Jamaica Avenue from the Brooklyn border through
Woodhaven and
Richmond Hill to Jamaica during 1917-1918. As all developers and
realtors
knew, these massive improvements in transportation, especially the
opening
of Queens to five-cent fare service, promised rapid growth. Farms and
open
areas began to vanish and endless rows of new streets and one family
houses
began to spread out all over Queens.
During the 1920s, Queens rocketed from 469,042 to 1,079,129, a growth
rate
of 130 percent. Although the Great Depression of the 1930s ended this
boom,
growth of another kind was underway, with the construction of more
bridges
(the Triborough Bridge in 1936 and the Bronx-Whitestone in 1939,) roadways
(the Interboro Parkway in 1935 and the Grand Central Parkway in 1936) and
airports (LaGuardia Airport in 1939 and Idlewood in 1948.)
The World's Fair of 1939-1940 put the new borough on the national map
for
the first time. Massive preparations for the event began in 1936 and
brought
about the elimination of the stupendous Corona dumps -- dubbed the
"valley
of ashes" by F. Scott Fitzgerald in The Great Gatsby. Afterwards, the fair site became Flushing Meadows Park (later renamed
Flushing Meadows-Corona Park.)
The Post War Years
After World War II, growth surged again, leveling off in the early
1960s.
City block size garden apartments sprouted in many areas of the
borough. The
remaining tracts of land in northeastern Queens, including former golf
courses, filled up with single family and attached housing. In Fresh
Meadows, between Flushing and Jamaica, a complex of highrise apartments
built by the New York Life Insurance Company housed 14,000. The final
transportation triumph occurred with the completion of the Long Island
Expressway in 1960.
During this period of growth, great progress was also made in the field
of
higher education. In 1937. Queens College opened on spacious grounds in
Flushing. Saint John's University moved from Brooklyn to the former
Hillcrest Golf Course in Jamaica in 1955. In 1960, Queensboro Community
College opened on the grounds of the former Oakland Gold Course and
York
College was opened in 1967.
The 1964-65 World's Fair returned to Flushing Meadows bigger and
better. It featured 140 pavilions on 646 acres and can best be remembered as a
showcase of the dynamic technological and scientific changes that took place
between the 1930s and 1960s.
Ever Changing Borough
The most important and visible changes in the long history of Queens have
been the ethnic transition of the 1970s and 80s.
On July 1, 1968,
Congress
enacted a major restructuring of the immigration statutes that for the
first
time relaxed the restriction on immigration from third-world countries.
In
the last thirty years Queen has witnessed a flood of newcomers from
Central
and South America, the Caribbean and Asian countries principally China,
Korea and Japan, and India. The new arrivals have tended to settle in
clusters in particular neighborhoods. Flushing is now predominately
Asian;
Jackson Heights and Woodside, Hispanic; Corona, Dominican; Elmhurst,
Colombian. With Astoria heavily Greek; Forest Hills, Israeli Russian;
St.
Albans and South Jamaica, African American, Queens has become the most
ethnically diverse county in the country.
This article was excerpted with permission of Vincent F. Seyfried
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