Plaza College in Jackson Heights is one of the smaller business schools that provides opportunities to Queens’ residents. Tribune Photo By Ira Cohen
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Queens Almanac
The Queens Almanac informs and updates our readers on the essentials of our borough. With interesting facts and information, the following is a compilation from the Queens Chamber of Commerce and other sources on the basic facts of Queens.
AREA:
Physically located on Long Island, Queens’ land area is 112.1 square miles (71,780 acres), 34.8 percent of the city’s area and is the largest borough of New York City.
ASSESSED VALUATION:
2000-2001 assessed valuation was $14.4 billion for ordinary (commercial, residential and industrial) properties and $1.6 billion for utility and special franchise properties.
AVIATION:
John F. Kennedy International Airport (4,930 acres) and LaGuardia Airport (680 acres) provide more than 270,000 direct and indirect jobs and contribute $28.1 billion in economic activity, making aviation one of the borough’s top industries. In the last year-to-date summary from the Port Authority, compiled in November 2006, there were a total of 38,889,905 passengers at JFK and 23,710,557 at LaGuardia.
BANKS:
26 different banks are located in Queens with Chase Manhattan Bank offering the most branches – 19 separate locations.
Hundreds of miles of railroads, like these at the Sunnyside Yards, cover the Queens landscape. Tribune Photo By Ira Cohen
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BRIDGES:
Throgs Neck and Bronx-Whitestone bridges connect with the Bronx; Hell Gate Bridge carries New York Connecting Railroad to the Bronx via Wards and Randalls Islands; Triborough Bridge connects with Bronx and Manhattan; Roosevelt Island Bridge connects Long Island City and Roosevelt Island; Queensboro Bridge to 59th Street, Manhattan; Greenpoint Avenue, Kosciusko, Meeker Avenue and Pulaski bridges connect Long Island City and Brooklyn; Grand Avenue Bridge from Maspeth to Brooklyn; Marine Parkway-Gil Hodges Memorial Bridge links the Rockaways with Brooklyn; Cross Bay Veterans Memorial Bridge connects the Rockaways with Broad Channel; Joseph P. Addabbo Memorial Bridge connects Howard Beach to Broad Channel; Hook Creek Bridge to Nassau County.
EDUCATION:
There are 255 public schools with 180 private schools. Also, there are 10 colleges and universities with campuses in Queens, with total enrollment of more than 65,000 students.
ELECTRICITY:
Con Edison provides electricity to residential and commercial customers with 6,936 miles of overhead wire and 24,759 miles of underground cable through 717,689 meters in all areas of Queens except for the Rockaways, where 23,718 meters are served by the Long Island Power Authority.
GAS:
Con Edison provides gas through 808 miles of mains to about 200,000 meters in sections of Queens. In other areas, including the Rockaways, KeySpan Energy Delivery furnishes gas to 362,653 meters through 1,442 miles of mains.
HIGHWAYS:
34.6 miles of parkways include Grand Central, Jackie Robinson (formerly Interboro) and Belt Parkways (comprised of Cross Island, Laurelton, Shore and Southern Parkways). 41.1 miles of interstate highways include Brooklyn-Queens, Clearview, Long Island, Nassau, Van Wyck and Whitestone Expressways.
Ground was broken in the fall for Citifield, which will replace Shea Stadium in 2009 as the home of our beloved Mets. |
HOMES:
Queens is the city’s “home-owner borough” with 42.8 percent, taken from the 2000 Census, owning their own house. About 30 percent of the total population, about 660,000 people, live in a single-family home.
HOSPITALS:
Queens is home to more than 20 medical facilities and four psychiatric hospitals.
LIBRARIES:
The Queens Borough Public Library, with a central library in Jamaica and 63 branches, had a record number of 87,365 new borrowers that enrolled in 2006. The library system answered 11.5 million reference and directional inquiries and had 20.2 million items that were circulated in the last fiscal year.
MUSEUMS:
Over 20 major art, science, cultural and historical museums are located in Queens, including the Queens Museum of Art, the New York Hall of Science, the Queens Zoo and the Queens Botanical Garden.
PARKS:
New York City parks total more than 28,000 acres, with 614 ball fields and 991 playgrounds. Flushing Meadows Corona Park in Queens ranks as the third largest city park with 1,255 acres.
POPULATION:
The 2000 Census counted 2,229,379 residents in Queens, although it is estimated that the Census undercounted the borough by at least several thousand people. The official figure represents a 14.2 percent increase over the 1990 Census figure.
RAILROADS:
Over 700 miles of Long Island Rail Road tracks with 124 stations in Queens, Brooklyn, Manhattan, Nassau and Suffolk, and 26 stations in Queens. New York Connecting Railroad freight and passenger branches link Queens and Long Island to the North American mainland, via Hell Gate Bridge. Sunnyside Yards provides storage for Amtrak and New Jersey Transit.
RELIGION:
About 591 Protestant churches, 120 synagogues, 101 Roman Catholic churches, 26 Orthodox churches, and at least 35 Hindu temples, 18 mosques and 12 Buddhist temples are located in Queens.
TRANSIT:
In New York City there are 2,058 route miles of train track, 2,967 route miles of bus lines, and 734 rail and subway stations. The average weekday ridership is 7,785,175.
TUNNELS:
Queens-Midtown Tunnel connects to 38th Street, Manhattan. Also linking Queens to Manhattan are four Long Island Rail Road tunnels to 34th Street (Penn Station) and subway tunnels to 42nd Street, 53rd Street, 60th Street and 63rd Street.
WATER SUPPLY:
New York City’s water supply comes from reservoirs in the Catskill Mountains. A number of city-owned wells supplement the supply in southeast Queens.
WATERFRONT:
Queens has 196 miles of waterfront on Little Neck Bay, the East River, Flushing Bay, Newtown Creek, Jamaica Bay, Head of Bay Basin, Hook Creek and the Atlantic Ocean. There are nearly 10 miles of beaches in the Rockaways.
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