By Angela Montefinise

In a borough that is officially 319 years old, there are secret treasures around almost every corner, reminding the Queensites of the 21st Century of the Queensites that came before. Here’s a small sample of the best historic treasures that the borough has to offer, from houses to farms to railroads.

We’ve Got the Whole World . . .

In 1964, the World’s Fair swept into Flushing Meadows-Corona Park, bringing futuristic treasures, fantastic buildings and thousands of people into the borough. Every Queens resident old enough remembers the year-long festival that put the borough on the map, and although the food and attractions are gone, there are several structures still standing that remind everyone of the fair’s excitement.

Harry belted out ballads for Broadway at his historic mansion in Beechhurst. Tribune Photo by Michael Vonder Lieth

The 140-foot high, 700,000 pound Unisphere is the main structure still standing, and has become a symbol of the borough. It was dedicated on August 22, 1964, and is surrounded by three rings symbolizing the orbits of the first two American astronauts and the orbit first Russian cosmonaut. In addition to the Unisphere, the New York State Pavillion and the Open Air Theater still stand as symbols of the past at Flushing Meadows-Corona Park.

The streets of Queens are packed with historic churches, from Long Island City to Glen Oaks. St. George’s Episcopal Church in Flushing was founded in 1702 and chartered in 1761. Although it was enlarged in the 1920s, the original structure can still be found on 38th Avenue and 135th Street.

The Church of the Resurrection in Kew Gardens was founded in 1866 by Reverend George Cook, and can still be found on 118th Street and 85th Avenue.

In Jamaica, Grace Episcopal Church was built in 1862, First Presbyterian Church was built in 1813 and St. Monica’s Church in Jamaica was built in 1856.

St. Monica’s is located on the York College campus, and although the front of it has been preserved, the rest of the building is falling apart, despite landmark status.

NY State Pavillion: renovations in its future.

Sweet History

The founders of Jahn’s Ice Cream Parlor on 117th Street and Hillside Avenue in Richmond Hill have been serving up sweet goodies since 1897, but have only been in its current building since 1923.

The old fashioned sweet shop has a nickelodeon piano and most of the same furniture and decorations as it had at the turn of the 20th Century. The décor takes patrons back in time, while the ice cream just keeps them coming back.

On July 4, 1917, President Theodore Roosevelt gave an Independence Day speech at the Forest Hills Long Island Railroad Station, a national landmark that has been renovated over the years to keep it preserved as it was when it opened in 1911.

The station is still where Forest Hills residents can catch the train and has an old-fashioned touch that keeps with the charm of the Forest Hills Gardens neighborhood that surrounds it.

Bowne House - where we won our right to practice open religious beliefs. Tribune Photo by Jeremy Olshan

Home For
Religious Freedom

John Bowne, a Quaker who came to America in the 1600s, emerged as one of the lead opponents of the religious oppression imposed on Flushing residents by then Governor Peter Stuyvesant, a Dutchman who tried to overturn the Flushing Remonstrance of 1657 –  a document calling for religious freedom for all people in the New World. Bowne was the key player in upholding that document in 1662 and has been revered by the people of Flushing as a result.

The home he built in 1661 with his own two hands still stands in Flushing on 37th Avenue and Bowne Street and is filled with pieces of Queens history. The home was the first place where Quakers were allowed to meet in New Amsterdam. After being owned by nine generations of Bownes, the house is now run by the Queens Historical Society, which gives tours of the home, and keeps it in good condition.

Rufus was King of this Manor - statesman, diplomat and “gentleman farmer”.

Remembering
A Founding Father

Rufus King, a delegate to the United States Constitutional Convention of 1787, called Jamaica home from 1805 to 1897, when he owned a farm that has since been converted into an 11-acre park. His home still stands at 161st Street and 90th Avenue in Jamaica and is run by the Queens Historical Society. 

Flushing Town Hall, now used by the Flushing Center for Culture and the Arts for plays and cultural events, originally opened in 1862 on 137th Street and Northern Boulevard in Flushing, and was used for a variety of purposes including being an assembly point for Union recruits during the Civil War. The building, constructed in the Romanesque revival style of architecture, was also used as a bank, a police station, a jail, a grand ballroom, a courthouse and a site for P.T. Barnum’s sideshow. 

The Queens County Farm Museum is a 47-acre plot of land along Little Neck Turnpike in Floral Park that still operates as a “truck farm” while also acting as a museum. The farm’s property includes an 18th Century farmhouse filled with historic gadgets that a farmer in the 1700s would need. Tours are given of the property, workshops are taught, and festivals are held there. The farm also grows crops and raises animals.  

For nearly 150 years, Bayside’s Fort Totten stood as an armed and operational United States Army base, protecting New York and its residents through the Civil War, the British invasion of 1812 and the feared Spanish invasion of 1898. Thousands of soldiers were trained and quartered on the historic property, which was commissioned in 1857 and named for Brevet Major General Joseph Totten in 1901. Although the Fort was decommissioned in 1995 and is now going to be used for a Fire Department training facility and as public parkland, the winding roads, old-fashioned buildings and remaining pieces of stone wall remind Queens residents of the battles fought and the soldiers who stayed there. Many of the buildings on the Fort are run-down, but the City hopes to rebuild them and preserve the Fort as well as possible.  

In the late 1800s, businessmen across the City began thinking about constructing a bridge that would connect Queens to Manhattan, encouraging economic development and travel between boroughs. After several failed plans, Gustave Linderthal, Leffert Buck and Henry Hornbostel created a design for a twin cantilever bridge that would be used by trains to take people across the East River.

Construction began on July 19, 1901, and during construction it was decided that the bridge should be used for cars. The Queensboro Bridge, also known as the 59th Street bridge, opened to traffic on March 30, 1909 and connected Long Island City with lower Manhattan. Construction of the bridge cost $20 million and 50 lives – a portion of the unfinished bridge collapsed in a storm, killing several workers.  

The Valencia Theatre in Jamaica was designed in 1929 by John Eberson to be a “Spanish-style movie palace,” with 3,500 seats and a comfortable, fancy atmosphere. In 2001, the theatre still stands at 165-11 Jamaica Ave., but as the Tabernacle of Prayer for All People Church. Although the outside of the structure shows that it’s a church, the inside has not been changed from its original look and feel.  

Conrad Poppenhusen, a rubber baron who opened for business in College Point in the 1800s, was known for being good to his workers and giving back to the community, providing housing for employees and donating money to improve the local neighborhood. On his 50th birthday in 1868, Poppenhusen dedicated $100,000 to College Point for the creation of an institute, which was used as a village hall, a congregational church, a bank, a library, a firehouse and a jail. The five-story Victorian edifice with tall arched windows also offered the nation’s first free kindergarten. The structure still stands today and holds historical documents from College Point. It also provides tours, workshops and lectures on the history of College Point.  

The Flushing Quaker Meeting House, an unassuming, shingled hipped-roof building that stands on 137th Street and Northern Boulevard in Flushing, is the oldest house of worship in New York City, and is still being used after being built by settlers in 1694. 

In the shade of the Weeping Beech tree planted in 1847 stands the Kingsland Homestead, a two and a half story home built by Charles Doughty in 1785. It was originally built on the old turnpike in Flushing, but was moved because of proposed construction that would have destroyed it.

The original land for the home was purchased by Doughty’s father Benjamin, a rich Quaker, and was named after Doughty’s son-in-law Joseph King, who bought the home in 1801. The home has a gambrel roof, a crescent-shaped window, a Dutch-style split front door and an unusually wide chimney. The first floor is used for depicting Queens history and the second floor is decorated as if it belonged to a Victorian family. Its current location was once owned by Flushing nurseryman Samuel Parsons. It is the current headquarters of the Queens Historical Society and is located at 143rd Street and 37th Avenue, just steps away from the Bowne House.  

Lewis Latimer moved his family to a quaint two-story home in Jamaica in 1906: a home that is still standing, but has been moved to Leavitt Street and 14th Avenue Flushing to avoid being destroyed by development. Latimer, who was the son of runaway slaves, worked with Edison to perfect the light bulb filament and handed in Bell’s patent application hours before another inventor tried to submit one. He lived in New York with his wife and entertained the African- American community there.  

From 1915 until 1977, the biggest names in tennis congregated at the West Side Tennis Club in Forest Hills for the U.S. Open, a tournament that was held on the club’s grass courts until a bigger seating capacity was needed for the growing interest in the sport. The club, which was built in 1862, is still open for business, featuring 39 courts with various surfaces for over 800 members. In its heyday, the club was the center of the tennis and entertainment worlds, acting as the venue for several major concerts, including a Beatles show in 1965.

The Alley Pond Environmental Center (APEC) was once home to a 120-year old windmill and water pump that was actually used to help power the facility. In 1988, the windmill was gutted by a fire and restored after Assemblyman Saul Weprin secured funding to rebuild it. The rebuilt windmill now stands outside of APEC as a reminder of the way the Dutch settlers in the area generated power.

Over the intersection of Francis Lewis Boulevard and 73rd Avenue in Fresh Meadows, there is an overpass that serves as a bike and jogging path for the residents of Queens. That overpass used to be part of the 45-mile Long Island Motor Parkway, established by racing fan William Vanderbilt Jr. in 1908. The road was a private road for personal vehicles, and was the first built from Queens to Suffolk County. The paved road wound through Flushing, Fresh Meadows, Jamaica and Hollis Hills on the Queens side and included 65 steel and concrete bridges. The road, which required a toll, was used by 175,000 cars in 1929, but closed in 1938 after the free Northern State Parkway was built by Robert Moses and the Motor Parkway could not compete. The road was sold, but remnants of it can be found in Cunningham Park, in Fresh Meadows and in Jamaica.  

William Steinway, the son of a German immigrant and expert piano maker, continued to make Steinway pianos in Astoria, and built a mansion for himself on 400 acres of farmland at 18-33 41 Street in Astoria. The house was purchased and built between 1870 and 1873 and still stands as a historic structure.  

Arthur Hammerstein, the famous Broadway producer, called Whitestone home for most of his life, when he lived in a 27-room neo-Tudor that he had built in the 1920s on 168th Street and Powells Cover Boulevard. The home, dubbed “Wildfire” by Hammerstein and his wife after his most famous stage production, caught fire several times in the 1990s, causing severe damage to the building. Developers have restored the building and constructed condos inside. There are also condos around the historic building.