hese children, born since the millennium turned, are the new
population of Queens . . . the very beginning.
If you are reading this page, then to these children you will be
the product of the old century . . . the 1900s when the world was just inventing
technology, warring to settle the shapes of nations, and learning how to dream
electronically.
But we are more than that. We are a product of an experiment in
mixing cultures and faiths within the boundaries of one piece of land. We are the
benefactors and the survivors of a long struggle to prove that every culture has something
to add in the building of a unified community. We are the proof that as the world
continues to shrink, it will thrive with its new, closer neighbors because, we . . . the
product of many Queens centuries . . . did it first.
What follows is a tour through the building of Queens, from its
birth at the end of the collossal glacier’s travels to the world these babies were
born into. It is a lesson for their new century, and a tribute to the daily steps of life
that brought us this far.
