It is the definitive picture book that shows the way we were.

“Old Queens, N.Y. in Early Photographs” is a collection of rare photos and detailed captions that depicts life long ago in neighborhoods like Flushing, Maspeth and Jamaica. Compiled by historians Vincent Seyfried and William Asadorian, “Old Queens, N.Y.” is published by Dover Publications and is available at most local bookstores and library branches.

The following are some of the best of the book’s photos from Seyfried’s collection.

Bronx-Whitestone Bridge under construction, seen from Whitestone Point, January 15, 1938. The bridge opened on April 29, 1939, after only twenty-three months of construction. (Photo by R. Blazej; The Queens Borough Public Library.)

Main Street from 40th road, looking north, December 30, 1934. Keith’s movie palace is at the end of the street. (Photo by Frederick J. Weber; The Queens Borough Public Library.)

Grand Avenue, March 12, 1929. Looking east from 71st street. The traffic is usually light and cars few. (N.Y.C. Dept. of Highways; Vincent F. Seyfried collection.)
Photos from the collection of Vincent Seyfried

Hepburn’s Pharmacy, 1931. The interior of Flushing’s best-known drugstore in 1931. (Vincent F. Seyfried collection.)

View from Packard Building, January 12, 1917. Looking east along Queens Boulevard from the roof of the Packard Building. The gleaming new elevated structure is just about finished but not yet opened. (The station is 33rd Street.) Queens Boulevard in the foreground is a two-lane road with a trolley track on either side. All of Sunnyside lies open and undeveloped all the way out to Woodside in the distance; within ten short years the whole area would be built up. (Photo by N.Y.C. Board of Transportation; Robert Presbrey collection.)

“El” Terminal, 168th Street and Jamaica Avenue, 1921. A circus parade is just beginning. Note the aged wooden stores and the private house on the corner; Jamaica Avenue shrinks to only sixty feet wide east of this corner. The El itself came down in 1980. (Photo by Frederick J. Weber; The Queens Borough Public Library.)

Historic Niederstein’s Hotel, Metropolitan Avenue at 69th Street, ca. 1939. Built by Henry Schumacher about 1865, it became John Niederstein’s hotel in 1888. Niederstein had been a cook in Germany, came to America in 1866 and in the 80’s operated the Yorkville Assembly Rooms at 1393 2nd Avenue, New York. He gave his Middle Village place the name “Grand Hotel” and enlarged it by adding wings on both sides. In the 1970’s the hotel was modernized by new owners, who removed the old-time porch and carriage sheds. (The Queens Borough Public Library.)

Tyler’s Bathing Beach, foot of First Avenue, now 14th Avenue, on the East River, ca. 1898. Informal beaches like this were common along the shores of Flushing Bay and Long Island Sound. In 1916 the Board of Health shut down commercial bathhouses because of increasing pollution, but tolerated bathing by those who wore suits under their clothes. By the mid-1920’s swimming in inland Queens waters had disappeared altogether. (Robert C. Friedrich collection.)

New York World’s Fair, aerial view, looking west, 1939. Dominating this photo — and the entire fair — are the 700-foot-high Trylon and 200-foot-wide Perisphere at the heart of the fair’s Theme Center. Surrounding them are various buildings housing exhibits of government, business, industry and the arts. (The Queens Borough Public Library.)

Old Queens County Court House, ca. 1895. The old Queens County Court House was built in 1874 to serve all Queens County (then including Nassau County). (Photo by Paul Geipel; Queens Historical Society collection.)

“Village Green,” south of the railroad station, ca. 1920. Arched passageways lead to the station platform at the left and to the inn just out of sight at the right. In the center is the clock tower and the octagon business block. Burns Street appears at the left and Greenway Terrace at the right. (From a postcard; Vincent F. Seyfried collection.)

Bar interior, 1934. A typical Astoria bar on 18th Street and 27th Avenue in 1934. The tin ceiling and fixtures survive from pre-Prohibition days, but the portrait of Franklin D. Roosevelt, the cathedral radio and the stock are new. (Photo by Henry Dehls; Robert F. Eisen collection.)

West Side Tennis Club Stadium, August 8, 1931. A game in progress. The club came here in 1914 because it was being crowded out of its Manhattan courts by apartment builders and wanted unlimited acreage in the county to expand. From 1918 on the National Tennis Tournaments were held annually, and many of today’s prominent stars got their start here. The elaborate Tudor-style clubhouse is at the rear, and the Forest Hills Inn looms in the background. (The Queens Borough Public Library.)

Northern Boulevard, looking east toward 82nd Street, September 13, 1933. The main shopping district of Jackson Heights. The apartment house at the right, erected in 1914, was the first garden-apartment building built by the Queensboro Corporation. (Photo by Frederick J. Weber; The Queens Borough Public Library.)