The Grand Central Parkway cuts a course through the heart of Queens, serving as a link to Manhattan and Nassau County.
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Queens Always Looks To The Future
By DAVID OATS and BRIAN M. RAFFERTY
Queens has always been restless.
Perhaps the last thing to rest in Queens was the glacier that carved out the Hudson Valley. When it came to rest and melted away 15,000 years ago it left behind a wealth of vegetation, ponds and vibrant terrain – much of which can still be seen within the confines of Alley Pond Park.
The natives who settled here were hard-working Indians who fished, hunted and did a little farming. They lived in a series of small tribes, unimpeded by outside worries until 1614, when the Dutch ship “The Restless” made its way through what is now Hellgate and landed on the shores of Astoria.
Early Settlement
In 1638 the Dutch settled the area of Astoria and Long Island City, and four years later the British traded axes with the Indians for land and settled Newtown, encompassing everything else between Flushing Bay and Newtown Creek.
In 1645 Flushing was settled as a free town. When the Quakers arrived 1657, however, Gov. Peter Stuyvesant put his foot down, saying that New Netherlands was staunchly Protestant – Dutch Reform, to be specific. No other religious practices would be tolerated. But Flushing wouldn’t take that lying down. The freedom they had in Flushing would extend to all, regardless of religion. They drew up a document protesting the Governor’s order and 28 freeholders signed the Flushing Remonstrance.
The plan didn’t quite work right away. It wasn’t until John Bowne, a Brit from Boston, settled in Flushing four years later and allowed the Quakers to meet in his house that the ball really got rolling. Bowne was arrested and shipped out of the country. He ended up in Ireland and made his way to Amsterdam, where he pleaded his case before the Dutch East India Company, which overruled Stuyvesant
Bowne stayed in Amsterdam another eight years before returning to Flushing a hero. He is buried behind his house, which still stands today on Northern Boulevard.
While the bid for religious freedom was taking hold in Flushing, more people were getting a foothold in Queens. Farmers and fishermen from Hempstead bought land from the locals, and named their town after the tribe – Jameco, the local word for beaver, which was plentiful in the area.
They were granted a patent in 1956 and spread out over what are now Woodhaven, Ozone Park, Richmond Hill, Hollis, Queens Village, Howard Beach and Springfield Gardens, as well as Jamaica.
The townships united in 1683 when Queens County was created (it also included all of Nassau and part of Suffolk).
The Unisphere is the lasting tribute to the vision that typifies the restless nature of Queens. |
The Middle Years
Queens grew in 18th century, becoming a center for horticultural enthusiasts, a Mecca for excursionists and a very open target for the British in the early days of the Revolutionary War, falling to British domination in the Battle of Long Island in 1776 and staying in British hands for the duration of the war.
But as war ended and a new country emerged, Queens began to thrive. Agrarian and open in the start of the 19th Century, it would not enter the 20th the same way.
Steam-powered ferries spurred the growth of Astoria in 1815 and steam-powered locomotives brought new commercial activity to Flushing and Jamaica, which, by 1880, had become the key rail centers in the area.
Factories were built near the East River in Hunters Point and Dutch Kills. These towns were incorporated as Long Island City in 1870. In 1850 there were just 20,000 people in Queens, but by the turn of the century, the population had reached 153,000. Many were attracted by the company towns, such as the 400-acre development in Astoria built by William Steinway around his piano factory and a similar community built by Conrad Poppenhusen around his ironworks in College Point.
In 1898, the four chartered towns of Newtown, Jamaica, Flushing and Hempstead, along with Long Island City, agreed to consolidate into the Borough of Queens, joining the other four boroughs to form the Greater City of New York.
Exponential Expansion
Queens entered the 20th century as a rural outpost, a garden in the city. By 1920, however, the population had grown to nearly half a million.
The opening of the Queensborough Bridge linked the borough to mid-Manhattan and before long, the farms and estates were sub-divided and real estate developers created new towns and housing for immigrants and settlers.
But a great scar remained sliced down the heart of the borough. Novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald, in “The Great Gatsby,” used the ash mound in the center of Queens to define the dividing line between the rich of Long Island and the urban masses of New York City. Fitzgerald described the dumps as “a Valley of Ashes – a fantastic farm where ashes grow like wheat into ridges and hills and grotesque gardens.”
A determined builder named Robert Moses saw the future.
In 1936, Moses completed the construction of the Triborough Bridge, which linked Astoria with the Bronx and Manhattan. He cut through the dump in order to build his road to Long Island, the Grand Central Parkway, and he saw the opportunity to transform this eyesore into a great city park.
The Bowne House, where Quakers could openly meet, still stands today. |
In 1939, a World’s Fair was held at the site, opening the gateway to Queens. Highways began to pop up from dirt roads. The Queens Midtown Tunnel, the Van Wyck, Interboro, Long Island Expressway – all were designed to get people into Queens, into Manhattan and out to Nassau.
Major airports were located at north and south ends of the borough, industry grew, housing boomed, apartments rose from Quonset huts, the population swelled, breaking the 2 million mark by the end of the century.
Still Restless
As we entered the 21st Century the pace and the swell of the people would not subside. We have come a long way since the British and Dutch settlers, but how different are they from the South Asian, Latino and Eastern European of today?
Queens offers promise, hope and opportunity. These are the traits that drew our forefathers in the earliest days, that continue to get people to cross the globe to come here and make a better life.
Our living conditions are more cramped than ever, our schools are overcrowded, our infrastructure overburdened, our ideologies and faiths as diverse as any other spot on earth – yet we all live together, keeping that restless, pioneer spirit, seeking to find our niche.
We don’t know what the future holds, but Queens is filled with people ready to explore it.
