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(Unintended) book burning
Today’s Rego Park Library is not the same one that was first built, but sits right across the street from the original. With the big buildup of apartment houses in the 1940s and 1950s, Rego Park found its schools overcrowded and, even worse, it had only a storefront library, established in 1938, according to Queens Library records. Then in 1956, the community got a branch library, located at 91-34 63 Drive, between Austin Street and the Long Island Rail Road tracks.
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posted: February 16
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- Fleming’s Horseshoe: the biggest bar in Queens
- Posted: February 09, 2012
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The largest and most popular nightspot in southeastern Queens from the 1930s through the early ’60s was Fleming’s Bar & Grill, located on Merrick Boulevard at 228th Street in Laurelton.
The joint was a big 19th-century Colonial house that had been converted into a lunch hall-type restaurant by Emile and Bertha Miller, who in the 1920s dubbed it the Old Homestead. In 1936 decorated World War I veteran James Fleming purchased the Old Homestead, energized it and erected his famous horseshoe-shaped bar. At more than 70 feet, the bar was the longest in Queens at the time.
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- Restful Mattress put folks to sleep in Jamaica
- Posted: February 02, 2012
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In today’s marketplace we are constantly bombarded with mattress commercials as if the sale of such items is a whole new concept. It isn’t. Restful Mattress, the granddaddy of the business in Queens, was located at 168-40 and 168-50 Jamaica Ave. in downtown Jamaica.
Charles Greenbaum, with partner Abe Horowitz, had two furniture stores, one at 104-12 150 St. and the other in the two adjoining buildings on the avenue. You could buy a complete three-piece bedroom set for $29.99. By 1937 they saw there might be more money in the mattress business and expanded the store to carry every type of mattress. Most were made of straw, feathers or horse hair with coil springs.
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- Parkway Village was a home to all the world
- Posted: January 26, 2012
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The Colonial-style community situated on 37 acres northwest of where Main Street leaps over the Grand Central Parkway was conceived and built in 1947 to house employees of the new United Nations. The housing was carefully planned and a factor in basing the UN here in New York City. It was called Parkway Village.
The atmosphere of diversity and acceptance at the complex reflects the values that have been a trademark of the borough since the 1657 declaration of religious freedom known as the Flushing Remonstrance.
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- Cary Grant’s grant to St. John’s Hospital
- Posted: January 19, 2012
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by Ron Marzlock
Chronicle Contributor
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- Self-serve chow: Horn & Hardart
- Updated: January 19, 2012 - 3:06 pm
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With Queens facing a massive housing shortage due to the return home of World War II veterans, the Metropolitan Life Insurance company built a huge complex of buildings complete with a shopping center to help ease the crisis. The new planned community was called Fresh Meadows.
To help feed the new residents, Horn & Hardart opened an automat at 61-40 188 St. in 1949. Automats were the forerunner of today’s fast food. Customers went to a locked glass window, chose their desired item and put in their nickels and dimes.
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- In Richmond Hill, a Riis’ legacy
- Updated: January 05, 2012 - 3:52 pm
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When northern Richmond Hill was originally sub-divided, the streets were given the names of beautiful, strong trees such as Beech, Willow, Walnut, Oak, Elm, Chestnut, Maple and Cherry.
Some 50 homes that adorn these blocks were built by Andrew (Andreas) Jenson Riis (1869-1936), a Danish immigrant who came to Richmond Hill at age 20 in 1889 from Nyker Bornholm in Denmark. He got his apprentice training by working for the Haugaard Brothers.
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- In Jamaica, Victory honors Civil War heroes
- Posted: December 29, 2011
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On May 18, 1894 the Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Association of Jamaica was chartered, its purpose to build a monument to perpetuate the memory of those who served in the Union Army in the Civil War — defeating the Confederacy and ending slavery in the United States.
The resulting statue was unveiled and dedicated on Memorial Day 1896 in the middle of Hillside Avenue and Merrick Boulevard in Jamaica. It was a bronze figure of the winged Victory by Fredrick Wellington Ruckstull (1853-1942).
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