By LIZ GOFF

Newtown, Queens – Dutch settlers purchased the land from local Indians for one axe for every 50 acres.

One of the first towns settled on the land was Newtown, established in 1642. The "five-towns" area included the present communities of Corona, Glendale, Ridgewood, Maspeth and Elmhurst.

The Elmhurst Gas Tanks were once a familiar part of the borough’s landscape. Here's a view of them going up.

A second group of colonists arrived in the area in 1652, when they built homes near the intersection of what is now Queens Boulevard and Broadway – an area dubbed "Middleburgh" after a town in their homeland.

These colonists were in almost constant disagreement with Governor Peter Stuyvesant, who eyed the settlement with skepticism, carefully watching the growth and takeover of land by the settlers.

Before the subway brought rapid urbanization to the area, sights like this 1909 carnival at Parsons Boulevard and Elm Street were common place.

Stuyvesant denied the colonists their own patent on the land. In response, they changed the name of the settlement to Hastings and, in 1663 they tried, albeit unsuccessfully, to annex themselves to Connecticut. The controversy stopped abruptly in 1664 when the English gained control of the area.

In 1665 the settlement was dubbed New Town, and the local village of Elmhurst became the seat of local government. The town hall, jail, tax office and town clerk’s office were located there. Farmers traveled from miles away to vote in Elmhurst, to worship at the town’s three churches, and to shop.

Things remained relatively quiet in Newtown until the railroad came to the area in 1854 and the horsecar arrived in 1876.

Newtown Creek acquired a "foul" reputation in the late 1880s, when new industry began pumping water into the once icy-clear waters – creating a "dreadful stench." Anxious to avoid sharing the reputation of Newtown Creek, town elders moved quickly to rename the area. In 1897 they dubbed the area "Elmhurst," significant for the elm trees that surrounded the area.

Many of the English who came to settle this area longed for their homeland. As they instilled their knowledge and cultures upon the land, it began to resemble England.

The town’s economic base was agriculture, particularly vegetables and fruits sold to people "from the island of Manhattan."

It was noted at the time that, "The introduction of turnpike roads, the establishment of daily stages and steamboat communication.…have increased the facilities for travel and transportation of produce to a remarkable degree." Elmhurst was becoming a "boom town."

Craftsmen were encouraged to settle there. They built simple houses with roofs made of thatch, along both sides of what is now Queens Boulevard. Elmhurst had always been a quiet and peaceful place where no stranger was allowed to live unless permission was granted by a popular vote cast by villagers.

Cord Meyer, a prominent New York City real estate developer, was partly responsible for renaming the town. Meyer – interested in "selling the town" – did not want the area associated with the stench of Newtown Creek.

Late in the 19th Century, Meyer built "modernistic" houses on 1,700 lots in Elmhurst, selling them for $600 each – and drastically reshaping the image of this once sleepy village.

Today, Elmhurst has more people eager to live in the community than there are homes available, according to city planners.

Elmhurst still possesses "bragging rights" to the excellent transportation facilities spoken of by Cord Meyer in the last century. Subways and buses, and the Long Island Railroad – along with highways that crisscross and connect in all directions – make travel and transportation to and from Elmhurst a "breeze."

The area houses the Queens Center – the borough’s only enclosed shopping mall, and one privately owned hospital (St. John’s).

Historical sites in Elmhurst abound. The Reformed Church of Newtown was used by British soldiers for storing gunpowder. The Presbyterian Church was deemed a landmark due to its antiquity. The church was also used as a prison during the Revolutionary War, and when it was demolished it supplied the materials for building barracks for soldiers.

The Moore Homestead, built in 1663, was the home of Clement Clarke Moore, author of "The Night Before Christmas." One of the Moore ancestors was the first minister of the town.

General Howe maintained his Revolutionary War headquarters at the Renne House located on Queens Boulevard and 57th Avenue. Here, the General wrote of his experiences in the Battle of Long Island and his plans to "capture the island."

Accompanying the historical sites are historical events. For instance, after the American army was driven out of Long Island in the Battle of Long Island in 1776, the town was held by the British until the end of the Revolutionary War in 1783.

The City Hospital Center at Elmhurst had its beginnings more than 150 years ago.

Built in1832, the facility – then known as City Hospital Center – was built on Blackwell’s Island (Roosevelt Island). As part of the city’s prison system, the hospital was "a home for lunatics, paupers, and convicts." During the Civil War, Union soldiers were treated for a mere 14 cents a day.

Over the years, the hospital expanded its services to include a maternity department, nursing school, an oral surgery department, a pharmacy and a cafeteria. Transportation to Blackwell’s Island was improved by an hourly steamboat service – replacing "six rowers in a boat."

One of the most prosperous organizations of its kind during the late 1800’s in Queens, the Adelphi Social Club had a seniors baseball team and a junior team. The successful junior team survived and was later called the Adelphi Club, incorporated under the laws of State of New York. First organized in 1870, the Adelphi Social Club was originally called the Artic Baseball Club. Meetings were held in Turn Hall, on the northwest corner of 122nd Street and College Point. The Social Club also held masquerade balls. It was also a sick and death "benefit club," in which members received weekly sick benefits of six dollars and death benefits of $150. Initiation dues were eight dollars and monthly dues were 50 cents.

As the population of Queens grew, a new hospital – called Elmhurst General Hospital – was built in, where else? Elmhurst. The year was 1957, and the cost was $250 million. The new building was designed by longtime Corona resident Larry Wegeman. There were two 11-story buildings and a five-story building, all interconnected. About 300 patients and 1,000 staff members were transferred to the new 970-bed facility.

By the time they were incorporated in 1895, the entire population of the area at that time was 48,272. Hunters Point was filled with factories and frame houses that spilled over into Dutch Kills. Ravenswood was a town of factories along the waterfront, and row upon row of nondescript houses filled pockets of space further "inland." Many farms and large estates managed to survive intact into the 20th century in Long Island City. The streets were primitive – dusty in summer and muddy in winter. But the telephone had finally come to the area.

The opening of the Queensborough Bridge in 1909 changed the face of Long Island City. Many factories moved to the area, and innumerable industries took advantage of the ample space and low land costs.

From the early 1900s to 1960, the city encouraged small industries to relocate to Long Island City. In the 1960s, an exodus of artists started moving into large loft spaces in the area. They came for the reasonable rents, but they stayed for the charm and warmth and sanity of an area surrounded – but not in any way dominated – by much of the city’s industry.

By 1960, the city had rezoned all of Hunters Point and much of Dutch Kills exclusively for manufacturing. With the spread of factories in the area, neighborhood services began to decline.

It was at this point that the residential community in Long Island City should have died – according to city planners. It didn’t.

Instead, people are coming back to live in Long Island City. A large number of people who grew up there and moved to the "suburbs" are coming back. They’re taking over their parents’ houses and raising kids there again.

Today, Long Island City is a mix of the business and residential communities working together – in a mutually beneficial relationship. It is a community that is very much watching out for its own best interest – and that interest is change. Change at a sane pace, keeping the community flavor intact, while adding new blood, to support the varied interests of New Yorkers.

Residents like Long Island City for what it is, and has always been: A nice place to live and raise children. It is a place tempered by challenge and change. A place with a future for many kinds of people.

A nice place to call home.

When the notorious Battle Axe Gleason Mayor of Long Island City, was arrested at the end of the 19th Century, he was held "upstairs" at "Millers Hotel" (now the Waterfront Crabhouse) because the local precinct was under construction.

Check out those spokes! The city’s first bike cops pedaled their way through Queens and into history.

The 108th Precinct in Long Island City was the first constructed in Queens after the borough became a part of the greater City of New York in 1898.

In the years immediate following Queens’ consolidation into the "greater metropolis," there were two police precincts – the 108th in Hunters Point with two acting sergeants, two roundsmen (beat cops), and 27 patrolmen. The 114th in Astoria boasted two acting sergeants, two roundsmen and 33 patrolmen.

Think "Bike Cops" are a product of the 20th Century? Think again.

The first 29-member NYPD bike squad, known as the "Scorcher Squad" was established by Police Commissioner Theodore Roosevelt in 1895. The squad made 1,366 arrests in their first year.

Probably the greatest change in policing in Queens occurred in our time when, in March 1995 the "nerve center" of the NYPD in Queens was split into two commands: Patrol Borough Queens North and Patrol Borough Queens South.

Under the shift in policy, each borough became responsible for eight Queens precincts – a move designed to bring police closer to the community and to expand on crime reduction techniques established by Assistant Chief Robert Burke, who commanded police borough-wide prior to the split-techniques described by police brass as "phenomenal."

Queens firefighters are often left in the smoke – their acts of heroism unheralded.

Things seem to have been the same at the end of the 19th Century when local smoke-eaters were forced to operate with inadequate apparatus and too-few firefighters on the street.

That began to change when Battle Axe Gleason was forced out of office and the new mayor, Horatio S. Sanford, took up the cause of firefighters as one of his first priorities.

In 1893, Sanford secured $35,000 for new equipment and 440,000 annually for its maintenance through the legislature. The department purchased four new engines, two "Hays" trucks with extension ladders, two Gleason and Bailey hose wagons, 5,000 feet of new rubber hose and outfitted two trucks with chemical fire extinguishers.

Two fire houses were repaired, five were constructed, 24 horses were purchased and 30 firefighters were hired – along with a "competent chief." The department purchased five fire boats, one equipped with pumps, hose and an 80HP engine, to "render assistance at any needed point along the waterfront."

Firefighters began at that time to get their "15 minutes" in the public eye, when the Long Island City Star assigned a reporter to follow their activities and file daily reports in the paper.

From its earliest roots, the Jamaica section of Queens was a bustling commercial community, an agricultural center, and an area deeply entrenched in religion and religious beliefs.

As Queens was still in its infancy, Myrtle and Jamaica Avenues looked nothing like the commercial district it is today. (Above right) Many of Queens’ early inhabitants stayed at the Triangle Hotel located where Myrtle and Jamaica are today.

In about 1800, "turnpike fever" hit Queens County. The idea was to privatize the public roads – to lease them for fixed periods to private companies, which would be authorized to collect tolls and in return maintain good road surfaces.

In 1809, a group of private citizens organized the Brooklyn, Jamaica, and Flatbush Turnpike Company and erected a toll house at what is now Jamaica Avenue and the Van Wyck Expressway.

Perhaps the most notable events in these years before the Civil War were the slow growth in the old colonial villages and the appearance on the scene of real estate promoters. Jamaica, a hamlet in colonial days, was incorporated as a village in 1814.

The years from 1898 to World War II might be summed up as the "Era of Urbanization" of Queens on every front as a record number of new communities were founded. Jamaica, less thickly settled than many surrounding villages, gave rise to several new communities, including St. Albans in 1892 and Laurelton in1906.

One of the major factors in the development of Jamaica in this era was the revolution of transportation. In August 1905, electric train service opened to Jamaica.

The Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company extended the Broadway elevated all along Jamaica Avenue to 168th street in 1916-18. This proved a tremendous stimulus to home buying in Jamaica.

Although Jackson Heights is a comparatively new community, its history is rooted in the village of Middletown, where two prominent families fashioned a lifestyle beginning in 1662.

The Broadway area of Flushing around 1910 included large expanses of vacant land with few homes.

But long before that – long before the socially-elite meshed with farmers to settle the land, Native Americans roamed throughout this wilderness, an area dotted by marshes, woods and fields just across the river from New Amsterdam.

Broadway through the Flushing area of Queens — now known as Elmhurst, as it looks today after a major influx of residential and commercial development.

In 1662, William Leverich settled in Middleburgh, in the county of North Riding, where he became town pastor. The Leverich homestead stood at the westerly edge of present-day Jackson Heights, along Long Island’s "gold coast." There, at 34th Avenue and Junction Boulevard, $1 million in Union funds were hidden by Leverich – held against a possible rebel victory in the Revolutionary War.

The Leveriches were joined by the Barclays, who owned large stables and bred trotting horses. The Barclays built a huge race track near Northern Boulevard between 72nd and 74th Streets. The racetrack drew large crowds during the racing season, and became a mainstay of the social set.

Both families lived the comfortable life of the gentry, frequenting the Manhattan social life and sharing hospitality with area residents.

Most of the other land tracts were owned by German truck farmers whose crops supplied the Manhattan market with vegetables.

In 1909, these same settlements were filled with adjoining barns, carriage houses, corn cribs and wheat fields. Trees scattered along side main roads. Dairies and duck ponds abounded, and swampland dotted the landscape.

The development of present-day Jackson Heights began with the purchase of100 acres of land by Justice P. Henry Dugros – part of the Barclay homestead.

In 1909, Edward A. MacDougal – a renowned real estate developer – purchased the acreage from Dugros, along with an additional 265 acres in the same area. The 365 acres were laid-out in 100 blocks, and named after John C. Jackson – architect of the thoroughfare that later became Northern Boulevard.

MacDougal’s Queensboro Corporation developed Jackson Heights by constructing apartment buildings and bringing transportation to the area.

Although the "new" Jackson Heights was served by adequate transportation, residents were slow to adapt to trains, which were ridiculed as the "subway to the cornfields."

The Queensboro Corporation takes credit for building the first garden apartment in this country. MacDougal brought the concept to Jackson Heights from Europe, where he studied housing and returned to build Jackson Heights.

The first garden apartment was completed in 1914, at the southeast corner of Northern Boulevard and 82nd Street, signaling the birth of the community.

During the construction of the Jackson Heights apartments, the community experienced the highest rate of growth in the United States, jumping from 3,600 to 44,000.

Borough President Claire Shulman stands in front of the Louis Latimer House after the home of the scientist/inventor was moved to its present site at Leavitt Field in Flushing. Inset Louis Latimer, 1882.

MacDougal continued to develop Jackson Heights until his death in 1944. His son, A. Edward MacDougal, then assumed the corporation’s lead role – building apartments in Jackson Heights until he passed away in 1957.

The elder MacDougal’s influence on Jackson Heights is still evident. His donations of land to various religious denominations have resulted in the many churches, synagogues, and private schools in the area.

Jackson Heights today is a myriad community, blending the present with the past. It is a neighborhood of neighborhoods, with newer Hispanic, Colombians, Mexicans, Indians and Argentineans occupying homes once owned by earlier German and English residents. The commercial community continues to grow in leaps and bounds, as evidenced by crowds shopping along 37th Avenue, 82nd Street, and the bustling Roosevelt Avenue and Junction Boulevard corridors.

Yet the flavor of Edward MacDougal’s garden community remains intact, with new developments springing-up between grassy areas sprinkled with an assortment of flowers and trees.

Development quickened when the Long Island Rail Road arrived in Flushing in 1834. When the Queensborough Bridge opened in 1909, the pace of development heightened. The first subway trains arrived from Grand Central Terminal on Jan. 28, 1928, bringing Flushing closer to Manhattan.

HOW THE TIMES HAVE CHANGED: On the left is the old College Point Democratic Club at the corner of 122nd Street and 23rd Avenue, and on the right is the modern day version of the same building.

Flushing grew during the war years into a city of its own, and industry came to the area. Still, the post-World War II suburban boom lured Flushing residents to Long Island and beyond. But the area was revived when a steady flow of Asian immigrants moved into the area.

Today, Flushing is among the largest communities in New York City, in both population and size.

It’s the home of the Queens Botanical Gardens, Flushing Meadows-Corona Park and Queens’ Boys of Summer –
the New York Mets!

The history of Astoria’s "Little Athens" began in 1927, when 16 Greek families settled in the area.

They were the pioneers of the Greek-American community in Astoria – families who worked hard to gather enough money to build a Greek Orthodox church in the area. They were only able to raise enough funds to build a foundation for the church, at 30th Drive and 31st Street, and to build a church basement.

For 13 years, Astoria’s Greek population worshipped in that basement.

As the community grew and prospered, so did the church fund and, in 1940 the parishioners built St. Demetrios Church.

John Kiamos remembered worshipping in the basement church in 1927. His was one of the 16 families who laid the foundation and created the Greek-American community.

(Top) Main Street, Queens Circa 1975. Main Street, Queens is shown here during three generations, changing from a country road to a bustling commercial strip, to today’s multi-ethnic, "computerized" superhighway. (middle) Main Street, Queens circa 1897, (bottom) Main Street, Queens circa 2000.

Kiamos was born on 29th Street in Astoria in 1912. One of five children of Penelope and Chris Kiamos, he stated his pride in the role his family played in the development of the Astoria Greek community.

Lambros Stamatiades settled in Queens with his wife and five children in 1949.

Stamatiades arrived in the U.S. in 1912 to seek a better life for his family. In 1934, his wife, Marigo, and four children joined him. A native of Karpathos, Greece, Stamatiades boasted to the Tribune in a 1992 interview that his five children (one son was born here), 11 grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren were his "most precious accomplishment."

"It was a hard thing to do," he said, recalling his decision to leave his family behind to come to America. "But I knew there was a better way, a better life here. It was the kind of life I wanted for my family."

At 97 years old, Stamatiades still lived in the same house where they raised their family and he still read The New York Times, cover to cover, each day.

"Many things have changed," he said. "The children have done well. We have reason to be proud."

Stamatiades passed away shortly after this interview.

The Greek community in Astoria continued to prosper and grow until the population "peaked" in the 1970s. That’s when the souvlaki stands began to appear on Astoria street corners, sending the scents from the carts wafting throughout the area – tempting local residents to sample the culinary treats offered by the vendors.

Adonis and Mary Deligianis came to America with their children from Nea Fokea, Greece, in 1949, eventually settling in Astoria.

Today, their son, George Delis, is district manager of Community Board 1 and "unofficial ambassador" of the Astoria Greek-American community.

Delis points to his sister, "Libby," now principal of PS 85 in Astoria, with a sense of pride when describing his family’s achievements.

"Libby is a nickname for Liberty," he said. "My parents named my sister after the promise they sought when they came to this country.

"The United States has always kept the promise," Delis said.

"Astoria was the right choice."

Astoria homeowners were no different from homeowners throughout the country during the Depression years.

Everyone had a victory garden in the yard – front and/or rear, where they grew vegetables and helped to feed their families.

FLASHBACK: This is how Bell Avenue (now Bell Boulevard) looked in 1917 prior to the massive commercial development that now defines that area of Bayside. Photo Courtesy of Dover Publications

But it was in Astoria at that time that a custom began – something we take for granted today.

Here and there, front yards began to boast grass – green and lush. Families who were more affluent planted the grass as a status symbol, instead of cultivating a Victory Garden in the space.

The trend continued and spread. Today, almost everyone with a front yard tries to outdo the neighbor’s front lawn.

No history of Long Island City would be complete without mention of Patrick Jerome Gleason.

Gleason came to Long Island City to operate a railroad. He ended up controlling local politics.

OLD BATTLE AXE: The "perks" former Long Island City Mayor Jerome "Battle Axe" Gleason (left wearing top hat) enjoyed during his time in office ultimately led to his political downfall in the late 1800’s.

Born on April 25, 1844, Gleason’s political career began 37 years later. He was elected mayor of Long Island City in 1886, after running as an independent, without the backing of local Democrats.

Gleason’s fame rose with an attack he carried out on the Long Island Rail Road Company. The company had fenced the end of 2nd Street and Vernon Avenue in Long Island City, which led to a pier that housed a train depot – shutting out local residents from use of the pier. When Gleason found out that the street had been closed, and all access required a railroad ticket, he became enraged. He got an axe, chopped down the fence and gate, and made kindling wood of the ticket office. As a result, he was dubbed "Battle Axe Gleason" – a moniker he carried with him throughout his political career.

Jailed on a number of occasions for everything from slander to assault, Gleason’s most famous incarceration took place after members of the press, politicians and his constituents realized that his administration was one of the most corrupt in history.

Jailed "upstairs" at Miller’s Hotel (the local stationhouse, 108th Precinct, was under construction), Gleason’s time served was described as a "festival." Children carried bouquets of flowers to Gleason every day. Adults wrote verses ridiculing his jail life. Champagne and ice flowed at his will. A neighbor cooked his meals.

Gleason’s troubles multiplied in his final years. In 1886, he suffered a heart attack – reportedly caused by financial problems and political harassment. During the same year, Gleason’s property and franchises were sold at auction and bought by William Steinway, famous for the Steinway piano.

In 1899, Gleason was forced to declare himself bankrupt. During the years 1898-1901, he faded into political obscurity, "an object of contempt to his enemies and deserted by the political hangers-on to whom he could no longer dole out political patronage." He died on May 20, 1901, by far the most colorful figure in Long Island City’s history.

Preserving the past can help us gain perspectives of the future. Realizing this, the Landmarks Preservation Commission has deemed these following borough locations – architectural testaments to how far Queens has come – as historically important places.

Kingsland Homestead (original site), 40-25 155 St., Flushing, designated as a landmark 10/14/65.

Bowne House, 37-01 Bowne St.,(1661; additions 1680, 1696, and 1830), designated as a landmark 2/25/66.

Lent Homestead, 78-03 19 Rd.,(1729), designated as a landmark 3/15/66.

Flushing High School, 35-01 Union St., (1912-1915),designated as a landmark 4/19/66. Incorporated in 1875, Flushing High School is the oldest public secondary school in New York City. Its present home is an impressive collegiate Gothic structure designed by the city’s superintendent of school buildings. The choice of style and setting evokes the great Gothic colleges of Oxford and Cambridge.

King Mansion, also known as the Rufus King House, 151-01 Jamaica Ave., (1733-55: additions 1806, 1810, and 1830’s), designated as a landmark 4/19/66. Rufus King Massachusetts, delegate to the Continental Congress, anti-slavery advocate, and three term senator from New York purchased a modest gabled roof farmhouse and adjacent acreage in Jamaica in 1805.

Kingsland Homestead (current location), 143-35 37 Ave., designated as a landmark 4/19/66.

Lawrence Family Graveyard, 216 St. at 42 Ave., Bayside,(1832-1925), designated as a landmark 4/19/66.

Weeping Beech Tree, 143-35 37 Ave., Flushing, designated as a landmark 4/19/66.

Reformed Church of Newton and Fellowship Hall, 85-15 Broadway, designated as a landmark 7/19/66.

Steinway House, 18-33 41 St., designated as a landmark 2/15/67.

Grace Episcopal Church and Graveyard, 155-15 Jamaica Ave., designated as a landmark 5/25/67,(1861-62; chapel, 1901-02; graveyard 1734.)

Flushing Town Hall, later Flushing municipal courthouse, now home of Flushing Council on Culture and the Arts, (137-35 Northern Blvd., Flushing, (1862) designated as a landmark 7/30/68.

Richard Cornell Graveyard, Caffrey Ave., Far Rockaway (18th to 19th centuries) designated as a landmark 8/18/70.

Friends Meeting House, 137-16 Northern Blvd., Flushing (1694; additions 1716-19) designated as a landmark 8/18/70. The eastern third of the house is the city’s oldest structure in continuous use for religious purposes.

Poppenhusen Institute, 114-04, 14 Rd., College Point, (Mundell and Teckrittz, 1968), designated as a landmark 8/18/70.

Queensboro Bridge, Crescent St., Long island City (Lindenthal and Hornbostel, 1909), designated as a landmark 11/20/73. Crosses the East River between 11 St. and Bridge Plaza North and Bridge Plaza South, Queens, and East 59 Street. As the third bridge to span the East River and the first to connect Queens and Manhattan it was a potent influence on the development of Queens.

Fort Totten Battery, Officer’s Club, Fort Totten, Bayside, designated as landmarks 9/24/74. Between 1857 and 1863 the federal government purchased land in Queens for a fort that, along with Fort Schuler in the Bronx, would protect the mouth of the East River.

The Register/ Jamaica Center for Arts and Learning, 161-04 Jamaica Ave., (A.S. Macgregot,1898), designated as a landmark 11/12/74.

King Mansion Interior, 151-01 Jamaica Ave., designated as a landmark 3/13/76.

New York State Supreme Court, Long Island City: the building has heard ‘em all.

New York State Supreme Court, Queens County, Long Island City Branch, 25-10 Court Square, designated as a landmark 5/11/76. In 1870 the seat of Queens County was relocated from Jamaica to Long Island City; shortly thereafter a new courthouse was erected. Following a fire in 1904 the building was rebuilt in a Beaux-Arts manner by the local architect Peter M. Coco.

Creedmoor (Cornell)/ Jacob Adriance Farmhouse, 73-50 Little Neck Pkwy., Floral Park, (1772, additions C.1835 and later), designated as a landmark 11/9/76. The Adriance house is a rare example of a New York City farmhouse that is still set in a rural setting.

Allan-Beville House, 29 Center Drive, designated as a landmark 1/11/77.

Prospect Cemetery, 159 St., Beaver Rd., Jamaica, (C. 1680), designated as a landmark 1/11/77. This four acre plot is the oldest cemetery in Queens.

Paramount Studios Main Building, originally Famous Players-Lasky Studio, now Kaufman’s Astoria Motion Picture and Television center, 35-11 35 Ave., Astoria (Fleischman Construction, 1919-21) designated as a landmark 3/14/78.

St. Monica’s Church, 94-20 160 St., Jamaica, designated as a landmark 3/13/79.

TWA Terminal at JFK International Airport.

Marine Air Terminal and interior, LaGuardia Airport,(Aldrich, 1939-40),designated as a landmark 11/25/80. The art deco structure evokes the glamour of early air travel. It was a principal feature of Mayor Fiorello La Guardia’s plan to build a major airport in New York City.

Remsen Cemetery, 69-43 Trotting Course Lane, designated as a landmark in 5/26/81.

Sidewalk Clock on 161-1 Jamaica Ave.,(1900) designated as a landmark 8/25/81. Many of New York’s commercial streets were once graced by cast iron clocks generally erected as advertisements by local stores.

Sidewalk Clock on 30-78 Steinway St., (1922) designated as a landmark 8/25/81.

Former J. Kurtz & Sons Store Building, 162-24 Jamaica Ave., Jamaica, designated as a landmark 11/24/81. The store is one of the finest examples of Art Deco architecture in Queens and a building of great prominence on the commercial thoroughfare of Jamaica Avenue.

New York Architectural League Terra Cotta Works Building, 42-10 to 42-16 Vernon Blvd., Long island City (1892) designated as a landmark 8/25/82. A leading manufacturer of ornamental terra cotta in the years after it was founded, in 1886, by 1924 it was bankrupt.

RKO Keith’s Flushing Theater (Interior Lobby), 135-29 to 135-49 Northern Blvd., Flushing (Thomas Lamb, 1927-28), designated as a landmark 2/28/84. The ticket lobby, grand foyer, promenade, and lounges of the former theater, designed in a fanciful Mexican Baroque style, are a reminder of the grandeur of movie palaces in the 1920’s. The space is currently vacant and closed to the public.

102-47 47th Avenue House, designated as a landmark 2/10/87.

Louis Armstrong House, 34-55 107 St., Corona, (Robert W. Johnson, 1910) designated as a landmark 12/13/88.

The music man himself lived here: The Arthur Hammerstein House lives on, despite a fire that albeit destroyed the 75-year-old homestead in 1992.

Arthur Hammerstein House, 168-11 Powells Cove Blvd., Beechurst, (Dwight James Baum, 1924 and pre-1930), designated as a landmark 12/13/88. Arthur Hammerstein was a successful theatrical producer who sponsored twenty Broadway shows. Following the success of the musical Wildflower in 1923, and his marriage to the actress and film star Dorothy Dalton, Hammerstein purchased a water-front lot in Queens and erected this sprawling neo-tudor house, which was enlarged prior to 1930. The building is currently vacant, and in poor condition, but permits have been issued to restore it.

Adrian and Ann Wyckoff Ondertonk House, Flushing Ave., Ridgewood, (1820-1836) designated as a landmark 4/25/91.

The Unisphere and surrounding Reflecting pool, Flushing Meadows-Corona Park,(Gilmore Clarke, landscape architect :United states; Steel Company , engineering and fabrication 1963-64), designated as a landmark 7/19/94. The Unisphere symbolizing peace through understanding, was the centerpiece of the 1964-65 World’s fair. The monumental steel ball, stands in the center of a reflecting pool with fountains spraying water 20 feet into the air.

Cornelius Van Wyck House, 37-04 Douglaston Pkwy., designated as a landmark 3/21/95.

Trans World Airlines Flight Center at New York International Airport, now TWA at JFK International airport (Associates, 1956-62), designated as a landmark 3/21/95. The terminal is one of the greatest masterpieces of expressionistic modern design.

Latimer House, 34-41 137 St., Flushing, (1887-89),designated as a landmark 5/16/95. The renowned African American inventor Lewis H. Latimer lived in this house from 1902 until his death in 1928. Latimer was a specialist in electric lighting and invented the long lasting carbon filament, which made possible the production of affordable electric light bulbs.

First Reformed Church of Jamaica, 153-10 Jamaica Ave., Jamaica, (Sidney Young, 1858-90, addition Tuthill and Higgins, 1902), designated as a landmark 1/30/96. The bold massing and complex use of arched motifs make this one of the finest early Romanesque revival churches in New York.

La Casina, 90-33 160 St., Jamaica, (1933) designated as a landmark 1/30/96, now Jamaica Business Resource Center.

Moore Jackson Cemetery, 31-30 to 31-36 54 St., designated as a landmark 3/18/97.

Lamppost 72, Maspeth, designated as a landmark 6/17/97, located on the south side of 53 Ave. Step street between 64 St. And 65 Place.

Lamppost 95, Rockaway Blvd., designated as a landmark 6/17/97, located near 150 St. By Baisley Pond Park.