NY Wiki: Queens Archives

August 13, 2005

Dragon boat races

Hong Kong style dragon boat races come to Flushing Meadows,
Flushing, NY.

Posted by omor at 09:08 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

June 05, 2005

Astoria

Astoria NYC, by Joanna Grossman.

Photos, upbeat resaurant review and event news.

And she supports trees.

Posted by omor at 11:24 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

June 02, 2005

LIC

Long Island City, Queens.
News, forums, photo, for sale, apartment and loft rentals available.

LIC really is old and more recently very industrial.
There are still big cement mixing plants and oil tanks
and commercial waterways and so on. There are workman's
afterwork watering holes and strip clubs and lots of
places to take the train. [more]

Posted by omor at 03:25 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

June 01, 2005

LIC -- Wall Street water Taxi

Hunters Point took off as a transport hub when the LIRR moved its
terminus there from Brooklyn in 1861. Commuters can still connect
from the local station to Jamaica during rush hour.

Commuters to Manhattan have the E, V and 7 lines, or a water taxi
to 34th Street or Wall Street.

Posted by omor at 04:17 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

May 13, 2005

Avalon Riverview, Citylights

Avalon Riverview, Citylights in Long Island City.

Previously: Queens West.

[Photo credit: Ixtayul / Metroplus; more pics]

Posted by omor at 10:54 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

May 10, 2005

Bayside, Queens

Bayside, a quiet area on Little Neck Bay that is less than half an hour
from Pennsylvania Station by the Long Island Rail Road. Bordered on
the north by the East River and Little Neck Bay, on the south by
Union Turnpike, on the east by the Cross Island Parkway and on the
west by Utopia Parkway and Francis Lewis Boulevard, it is known for
its laid-back style of living, exceptional schools and in some quarters
hidden utility lines and the charming absence of curbs and sidewalks.

2004 April 25
IF YOU'RE THINKING OF LIVING IN | BAYSIDE
Bayside Community Spirit and Top-Rated Schools
By CLAIRE WILSON

ROSEMARY ZIMMERMAN is one of Bayside's busiest preservationists. She
restored the house she lives in, then bought and restored her childhood home
next door, a 1920's-era colonial that once served as a Christian Science church.
And with the houses pretty much done, at least for the moment, she volunteers
for the Bayside Business Association's tree-planting program, whose goal is to
keep this leafy swath of northeast Queens as green as it was when Mrs.
Zimmerman was a child, if not greener.

"We've planted about 100 trees in the past 10 years, and we're hoping to get Bell
Boulevard treed," said Ms. Zimmerman, a media sales representative who
moved back to Bayside with her family after brief stints living in New Jersey and
neighboring Little Neck. "We got state money to restore it with new lighting and
sidewalks. The plans are all ready to go."

Zealous volunteers like Ms. Zimmerman and supercharged civic groups are
almost too numerous to count in Bayside, a quiet area on Little Neck Bay that is
less than half an hour from Pennsylvania Station by the Long Island Rail Road.
Bordered on the north by the East River and Little Neck Bay, on the south by
Union Turnpike, on the east by the Cross Island Parkway and on the west by
Utopia Parkway and Francis Lewis Boulevard, it is known for its laid-back style of
living, exceptional schools and in some quarters hidden utility lines and the
charming absence of curbs and sidewalks.

In spring, streets lined with single-family homes and attractive co-ops and
condominiums are sugar-dusted with cherry and Callery pear blossoms that
compete for attention with luscious pink magnolias and canary-hued forsythia.

Jerry Iannece, a lawyer and father of two who is chairman of Community Board
11, credits local volunteers with overseeing the details that give Bayside its
appeal, from public Christmas trees and menorahs to staff levels at the 111th
Police precinct and land-use issues at Fort Totten, the Civil War fortress, part of
which is slated to become a public park in the next few months.

"They are outspoken and involved, and they are passionate about their
community," Mr. Iannece said. "Everything we do here revolves around
quality-of-life issues, and we love doing it."

Betsy Pilling, a broker whose family real estate concern has been in business in
Bayside for 30 years, says it is a perfect environment for raising children. "It has
the advantages of city living with none of the disadvantages," said Ms. Pilling,
who has three daughters. "You can have a comfortable lifestyle here and feel
you have done the best for your family."

The profusion of civic associations and community groups corresponds to
Bayside's informal division into enclaves, with the character of each informed by
the size, style, age and design of the houses there. They range from Bayside
Gables, a cluster of private curving streets and sloping lawns where residents
pay common charges for private security and groundskeeping, to Bayside Hills,
where the brick houses have slate roofs and the streets have elaborately
landscaped center medians. Weeks Woodlands and Bell Court have homes that
are diverse architecturally. Houses with water views, although separated from
Little Neck Bay by the Cross Island Parkway, are likewise one of a kind.

One of these is said to have belonged to W. C. Fields, who, like Gloria Swanson,
Charlie Chaplin, Rudolph Valentino and Norma Talmadge, lived in the area when
Astoria Studios was in its heyday. Miss Swanson is said to have once walked
down Bell Boulevard with a pig on a leash.

CO-OPS and condos of all descriptions are concentrated in the Bay Terrace
enclave, but whether the Bayside property is a luxury apartment or a small
detached two-family in a zone called Treasure Island, prices are going up.

Holly Park, a broker with ReMax, says many first-time buyers are quickly priced
out of houses and opt for co-ops or condos. "The average home for the first-time
buyer is between $550,000 and $650,000 for a single-family detached," Mrs.
Park said. "There's a small inventory of homes in the $400,000-to-$550,000
range, but they sell in no time."

According to the broker, a two-bedroom one-bath garden-style co-op apartment
in the 1,326-unit Bay Terrace Cooperative Gardens sold recently for $180,000,
while similarly sized units in the more upscale 21-story Birchwood co-op are
priced at $250,000. Birchwood has a pool, health club, doormen and parking.
Maintenance is $700 to $800 a month.

The median price of a single-family home has more than doubled in five years,
to almost $700,000 from $257,000 for a small two- or three-bedroom house on a
50-foot-by-100-foot lot. Increasingly, houses exceed $1 million; this has been
fueled by builders who buy small older homes on large parcels of land, knock
them down and build several homes or multiple dwellings in their place.
Two-family houses with rental units are very much in demand.

Low interest rates on mortgages have softened the rental market, however,
making desirable units easy to come by, according to Donna Reardon of
Prudential. "Three years ago, we didn't have an apartment to offer anyone, and
now we find they stay vacant a little longer than usual," she said.

The highest demand is for one-bedroom one-bath units, which rent for $1,100 to
$1,200 a month. Two-bedroom units average $1,300 to $1,500, Ms. Reardon
said.

Property taxes are low in Bayside, running about $3,300 a year, compared with
more than $5,000 for a comparable property just over the line in Nassau County,
but schools seem to be an even more important attraction. District 26 is the
highest ranked in the city, with 93.8 percent of fourth-grade students performing
at or above grade level in math (at Public Schools 188 and 205, it is 100 percent)
and 86.1 percent performing at or above grade level in reading.

Eighth graders at the two middle schools in Bayside, M.S. 74 and M.S. 158, are
also among the highest achievers in the city. In the four middle schools in District
26, 68.9 percent of the eighth graders perform at or above grade level in math
and 64.8 percent in reading.

Anita Saunders, who is superintendent of District 26 as well as local instructional
superintendent, said that money from private sources like the Empire State
Grant, VH1 or the Annenberg Foundation helped to finance special music and arts
programs but that there was a special emphasis on reading. Many fifth graders,
for example, are enrolled in a Shakespeare for Kids program and at some
schools, parents join children for Breakfast with Books. Some schools have adult
book clubs, too. "Expectations are high, people work hard and almost every
school gets better each year," Ms. Saunders said.

Bayside High School and Benjamin Cardozo High School both have newly
renovated athletic fields. At Bayside, with a student body of 3,100 in Grades 9
through 12, there are selective music and art programs as well as selective
science and math courses; six students recently won awards in the 2004 New
York City Science and Engineering Fair.

On the SAT reasoning tests, the average score on the verbal test was 466 last
year, compared with a statewide average of 496, and 504 in math, compared
with 510 statewide. Last year, about 54 percent of Bayside's graduating seniors
went on to four-year colleges.

At Benjamin Cardozo, with almost 4,000 students in Grades 9 through 12, last
year's average score on the verbal SAT reasoning test was 497, while the
average score in math was 545. There are 19 advanced placement courses at
Cardozo, where students can apply from outside the district for special academic
programs, including the Da Vinci Science and Math Institute or the mentor law
and humanities program. There is also a highly regarded dance program to
which admission is by audition only. Some 85 percent of last year's graduating
seniors went on to four-year colleges.

Private school options in Bayside include the Sacred Heart Roman Catholic
School, with 540 students. It teaches kindergarten through the eighth grade and
has a special program for 2-year-olds. Tuition is $2,750 a year per child if the
family is in the parish, $3,300 if it is not. Last year's fifth-grade cupcake sale
raised $1,700 for a Manhattan-based program for the homeless, Dennis Farrell,
the principal, said.

At St. Robert Bellarmine on 213th Street, tuition is $3,200 per student if the
family is a member of the parish, $5,000 for two children in a family and $5,500
for three or more, according to Sister Mary Ann, the principal. The school has
335 students in prekindergarten through the eighth grade. Out-of-parish tuition is
$4,200 per child.

The 45-year-old Queensborough Community College offers associate's degrees
in business, health careers and fine and performing arts to 22,000 students. It
has just instituted a course in massage therapy that will soon welcome
stressed-out members of the public to its student-staffed clinic.

The first residents of Bayside were the Matinecock Indians, whose name means
"land of the hilly ground." They lived peacefully on the shores of Little Neck Bay
until 1637, when the West India Trading Company lured the first Dutch farmers
with the promise of free property. The first permanent dwelling, a stone
farmhouse, was constructed by an Englishman, William Lawrence, in 1644. The
area was occupied by British troops during the Revolutionary War. The area's
name, written as Bay Side, first appeared on a public record in 1798.

By the end of the 19th century, wealthy Manhattanites had claimed Bayside as
their summer resort of choice, and Joseph Crocheron, a businessman whose
Bayside House was a favorite stomping ground, lives on in Crocheron Park, a
breezy green space on the water that bears his name.

It is adjacent to J. Golden Park, another of the four major parks in Bayside that
also include the 623.5-acre Alley Pond Park, which has a popular environmental
center for children, and the 18-hole Clearview Golf Course. Weekend greens fees
are $34.

Shops in the Bay Terrace mall, built in 1959 but recently renovated, include
Murphy's Flowers, Waldbaum's, Barnes & Noble and Victoria's Secret. They
complement the smaller shops and family-owned restaurants on the bustling Bell
Boulevard, which hops with night life on the weekends.

Parking is scarce around Bell Boulevard, especially near the train station, but
Maureen Higgings, a Pilling broker, said, "It's a place where you don't need two
cars because you can walk to the shops."

nyt

Posted by dc at 01:20 PM | Comments (0)

April 20, 2005

Citylights Co-op, LIC

Curbed covers LIC Citylights (built 1997) maintenance with a mortgage. [3, 2, 1]

Posted by omor at 10:18 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

March 21, 2005

Queens' Tribune

Queens' Tribune covers Queens: Flushing, Jamaica, etc.
A long list of Long Island and Queens newspapers.

Posted by omor at 04:31 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

February 08, 2005

Queenswest LIC (etc) community page

queenswest.com covers Hunters Point, Greene Point, and Long Island City.

Posted by omor at 02:22 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

February 04, 2005

Flushing directions

Q: Coming from the north (Westchester/CT/eastern Bronx), how best
to get to the Flushing mainstreet area (38th Ave & 138th Street) ?

A1: The exit from I-678 S (Whitestone) to 25a Northern Blvd
goes only west, towards Astoria. Take that and make a u-turn.

A2. Take i-678 exit 14 (Linden Pl). Stay on the service road to
the end (the third traffic light, I think). Make a left onto
College Point Blvd. Go about 7 blocks (you'll go under the
Northern Blvd overpass) and make a left onto 37 Ave. Go a few
blocks and make a right onto 138 St.

Posted by omor at 04:22 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

January 29, 2005

Play NY

Play NY, a lounge, bowling alley and pool hall
in Elmhurst, Queens.

Posted by omor at 05:47 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

December 18, 2004

The Windsor at Forest Hills, new condo tower

The Windsor at Forest Hills is a new condo tower at 71st Road and Queens Blvd
in Queens.

December 19, 2004
POSTINGS
Luxury Condos on the Rise in Forest Hills
DENNIS HEVESI

One block from the fashionable shops of Austin Street in Forest Hills
- where sidewalk cafes will sprout their umbrellas when spring returns
- a 21-story Art Deco-style condominium building is starting to rise
on a former parking lot across from the venerable Midway Theater.

The Windsor, at 108-24 71st Street, is the latest project of the Cord
Meyer Development Company, which first began building homes in
then-rural Forest Hills nearly a century ago. A lot has changed since
then.

Condominiums in the six-story prewar and postwar buildings that line
most blocks in the neighborhood - outside of the Tudor mansions of
Forest Hills Gardens - sell these days for about $275,000 for a
one-bedroom and $350,000 for a two-bedroom, according to Barbara
Frechter, president of Glenjay Realty, a local brokerage firm. At the
Pinnacle, a luxury condominium building on Queens Boulevard that rose
to 27 stories in the late 80's, a one-bedroom sold last week for
$418,000.

At the Windsor, even though only a few floors have been built so far,
52 of the eventual 95 apartments have already been sold, said
Jacqueline Urgo, executive vice president of the Marketing Directors,
which is handling the sales, with one-bedrooms starting at $510,000,
two-bedrooms at $675,000 and high-floor three-bedrooms at $1.025
million.

"They're very good prices for Forest Hills," Ms. Urgo said,
"outer-borough luxury prices." Compared with Manhattan prices, which
"would be $1,000 per square foot plus," she said, "we're achieving
$650 per square foot."

The architect on the project is Ismael Leyva, president of Ismael
Leyva Architects. "It's an Art Deco exterior with a combination of
beige brick and bronze-tinted glass," Mr. Leyva said, "with
floor-to-ceiling windows at the corners to bring in light" - and on
the upper floors of the south and west facades to offer views of the
treetops of Forest Hills Gardens or the Manhattan skyline.

Apartments in the doorman building will have mahogany strip floors,
nine-foot ceilings and kitchens with stainless steel appliances,
beech-colored cabinets and green granite countertops. There will be a
fitness center in the building, a lounge and on-site parking for an
extra charge. Occupancy is expected to start next September.

Further information can be obtained at the building's sales office at
108-40 Queens Boulevard; at its site on the Internet,
thewindsoratforesthills.com or by telephone at (718) 263-1800.
DENNIS HEVESI

Posted by omor at 07:05 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

November 23, 2004

Long Island City

For residents of Manhattan and Brooklyn who can't afford to buy in
those boroughs anymore, Queens offers a number of neighborhoods that
have the restaurants and night life that might appeal to them -
Astoria, Jackson Heights, Forest Hills and increasingly, Long Island
City.

"The up-and-coming neighborhood clearly is Long Island City," said
Andrew Heiberger, the founder and president of Citi Habitats. "There
is definitely a major housing shortage in the New York City area, and
anything with close proximity to Manhattan via train or car is going
to be very desirable. Long Island City is literally a stone's throw
away."

For years, people have been talking about Long Island City as the next
big thing, but its time may have finally come. According to Jon
McMillan, the director of planning for the Rockrose Development
Corporation, recent rezoning laws that allow for development of the
Long Island City waterfront - as well as the conversion of Hunters
Point warehouses and factories into residential space - have
intensified interest in those areas.

Next spring, Rockrose will break ground on seven buildings that will
eventually house 3,200 units. "The city has finally gone in there and
fixed the zoning in a very, very careful, block-by-block way, so that
this neighborhood can start to blossom as a residential neighborhood,
and buildings can be converted," Mr. McMillan explained. "Residential
housing will gradually replace taxi repair shops."

The changes in neighborhoods outside of Manhattan, he said, have
happened in a geographically logical way, and it makes sense for Long
Island City to be next.

"There is an evolution of the gentrification of the waterfront areas,
moving up from Brooklyn," Mr. McMillan continued. "If you imagine that
things started in Brooklyn Heights, moved to Dumbo and then up the
river to Williamsburg and Greenpoint, the next stop heading north is
Long Island City, which is one stop away from Grand Central on the No.
7 train."

Long Island City has also benefited from the fact that the Museum of
Modern Art temporarily relocated there while its Manhattan
headquarters were being renovated. "That brought a lot of people out
to Queens," said Ms. Liebman of the Corcoran Group. "It drew a lot of
attention to the area, and a lot of that buzz has stayed."

In addition, thanks to the P.S. 1 Contemporary Art Center in Long
Island City, and the nearby Socrates Sculpture Park, "there is sort of
constellation, almost a critical mass, of visual art in Long Island
City," Mr. McMillan said.

"You get the artists and sculptors hanging around, opening up studios
and living in that area," he said. "That is exactly the kind of thing
you want for the development and creation of a new neighborhood."

Furthermore, Mr. McMillan said, Long Island City "offers spectacular
views of Midtown Manhattan - the United Nations, the Chrysler
Building."

"When you are in Long Island City, you can almost feel as if you can
reach out and touch the buildings," he said. "You have this
psychological connection to Manhattan, and that is important."

Ms. Liebman predicted that "two years from now people are going to
say, 'Wow, I wish I had bought in Long Island City.' "

"And I don't know that they are going to call it Queens any more,''
she added. "I think they will probably end up breaking up the
neighborhoods. They will say 'Oh, I'm in Astoria,' or 'I'm in Jackson
Heights,' or 'I'm in Long Island City.' Just like people started to
talk about Brooklyn. The idea of 'Hey, I went to Dumbo' or 'Hey, I
went to Williamsburg.' And each of those Queens neighborhoods will
develop their own personality and persona, much like what has happened
in Brooklyn. There is no doubt about it, Queens has become hip."

Finally.

The New York Times
November 14, 2004
'Outer Borough' Finally Attracts The 'In' Crowd
By GAY JERVEY

Posted by omor at 11:41 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

September 15, 2004

Flushing Airport, College Point, Queens

If There's a Line at This Airport, It's Protesters
JEFF VANDAM 2004 August 15
COLLEGE POINT, Queens

Just off the Whitestone Expressway near the Queens community of
College Point lies an isosceles triangle of land that once was the
city's busiest airport. And although its runways are now shallow
rivers and its hangars rusty shells, Flushing Airport remains
essentially untouched.

Yet in the last few months, there has been nothing short of a
community uproar over the airport. In March, the city proposed that
the site be developed as a corporate park for nearly 200 wholesalers
from Manhattan. Since then, nearby residents have staged no less than
four protests outside the airport's barbed wire-topped fences,
motivated by an issue close to the heart of many Queens residents:
traffic.

"Adding 180 import-export businesses, with the resulting truck
traffic, would just be a nightmare," said City Councilman Tony Avella,
who lives in the area and already must navigate gridlock near the
airport when trying to get to work.

The area around the airport is home to several businesses, including a
shopping center across 20th Avenue that includes stores like Target
Greatland and BJ's Wholesale Club. Also, the United States Postal
Service and The New York Times maintain large distribution centers
nearby.

Along 20th Avenue, which serves as the airport's northern border,
banners on lampposts announce that the site is part of the College
Point Corporate Park, the proposed name for the project. But the
city's Economic Development Corporation, which selected the site and
drew up a plan for its development, has decided to create a new design
that addresses traffic concerns. The new plan may also include
recreation and other uses proposed by the community.

"We are trying to refine the project," said Janel Patterson, an agency
spokeswoman. "We're working with the development team to address the
concerns that were expressed."

These days, Flushing Airport is not visited very often. Though it
handled most of New York's air traffic in the 30's, the advent of La
Guardia Airport (then North Beach Airport) in 1939 spelled the
beginning of the end for the little field. Since it closed for good 20
years ago, it has seen little more than graffiti writers and
enthusiasts of arcana within its ill-guarded gates.

Until new businesses arrive, at least, the airport should remain the
peaceful swamp it has been for decades, its reeds and weeds swaying
gently in the breeze.

Posted by omor at 02:24 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

November 05, 2003

Parking, Flushing

Posted by dc at 10:30 PM | Comments (0)

October 29, 2003

No Standing in Flushing. Parking OK ?

Posted by dc at 09:55 PM | Comments (0)

October 24, 2003

Forest Hills Gardens

With its air of medieval mystery, Station Square in Forest Hills Gardens seems
more like something out of a dream than the gateway to the most exclusive
neighborhood in Queens.

October 23, 2003

Old Kew Gardens

Old Kew Gardens, Queens.

Posted by dc at 07:36 PM | Comments (0)

October 21, 2003

Queenspix

http://www.queenspix historical photography.

Posted by dc at 07:41 PM | Comments (0)

October 20, 2003

Forest Hills Gardens 2

The commercial clutter at the intersection of Austin Street and 71st Avenue in the
heart of Queens is lively but ordinary. It's hard to imagine that one block away lies
the verdant, precisely planned community of Forest Hills Gardens. Not to be
confused with the surrounding sprawl known simply as Forest Hills, this 147-acre
enclave has a population of about 4,500. It remains, almost a century after its
founding, the most successful and durable American example of the "garden city"
movement, which took hold in England in the late 19th century as an antidote to the
grimness of factory towns.

See also Forest Hills Gardens 1.

2003 August 15

In a Pocket of Queens, 'City' Meets 'Garden'

By PETER HELLMAN

The homes along Greenway Terrace in Forest Hills Gardens show the hand of
Grosvenor Atterbury, the supervising architect on the planned community, which
was begun in 1910.

The commercial clutter at the intersection of Austin Street and 71st Avenue in
the heart of Queens is lively but ordinary. It's hard to imagine that one block
away lies the verdant, precisely planned community of Forest Hills Gardens. Not
to be confused with the surrounding sprawl known simply as Forest Hills, this
147-acre enclave has a population of about 4,500. It remains, almost a century
after its founding, the most successful and durable American example of the
"garden city" movement, which took hold in England in the late 19th century as
an antidote to the grimness of factory towns.

Until 1977, thousands of tennis fans poured into Forest Hills Gardens each
August for the United States Open at the West Side Tennis Club. Now that the
event has moved to Flushing, the Gardens, with its privately owned streets,
sidewalks, parks and even sewers, has receded into year-round seclusion,
almost as if it were a gated community. Yet the Gardens, less than 30 minutes
from Manhattan by subway or 15 minutes on the Long Island Rail Road, beckons
anyone interested in experiencing what was accomplished, beginning in 1910,
when a free hand was given by the Russell Sage Foundation to the visionary duo
of Frederick Law Olmsted Jr., landscape architect, and Grosvenor Atterbury,
supervising architect.

Walk two blocks south from the subway stop (the E, F, R, G and V lines) at 71st
Avenue-Continental and pass under the railroad trestle. As you arrive on the
red-brick-paved Station Square, the natural starting point for a walking tour of
Forest Hills Gardens, the familiar is left behind. With its quirky high and low
towers, half-timbered facades, steep, terra-cotta-tiled roofs, arcaded walks and
covered bridges, Station Square evokes a medieval town platz in Germany. The
architect Robert A. M. Stern calls this public space "the finest of its kind" in
America.

The square, completed in 1911, is anchored by Atterbury's train station, perched
beside the elevated tracks, and his Forest Hills Inn, whose nine-story main
tower, topped with a spray of small windows and a dome shaped like Kaiser
Wilhelm's helmet, is the tallest structure in the community. (A needlelike tower,
rather like an off-center spike on the helmet, is currently in storage.) The inn
was converted to apartments in 1967 and became a cooperative in 1981.

The sharp eye will be rewarded by quirky Arts and Crafts Movement details on
Station Square and beyond. Midway up the steps of the railroad station, for
example, silhouettes on the lantern brackets show a full-skirted mother pulling
her recalcitrant child and the Long Island Rail Road's signature dashing
commuter clutching briefcase and umbrella. Above each figure, a crow peers
down.

Forest Hills Gardens can be said to owe its existence to the miserliness of Russell
Sage. Upon his death in 1906, the unphilanthropic financier left his intact $70
million fortune to his elderly wife, Olivia Slocum Sage. She created the Russell
Sage Foundation. Her interest in creating affordable housing resulted in the
purchase of several tracts, including, in 1908, one adjacent to the recently
improved railroad line.

Olmsted Jr., a worthy successor to his illustrious father, and Atterbury, a pioneer
in modern building methods and the designer of the American Wing of the
Metropolitan Museum of Art, were hired by Mrs. Sage's lawyer, Robert de Forest.
Their charge was to show that suburban development geared to modest wage
earners need not be haphazard. Development of the Gardens would be
controlled right down to the width of home setbacks, the precise color of exterior
trims, even the placement of oriel windows.

Forest Hills Gardens was not meant to be a nonprofit enterprise. In a 1908 letter
to Olmsted, who was then investigating the best of town planning in Europe, de
Forest wrote, "I believe there's money in taste." But not in overtly expensive
taste. In keeping with the Arts and Crafts ideal, a sense of visual modesty was
to rule the design. In a sharp-tongued, lengthy article in Scribner's Magazine
(July 1916), Atterbury wrote that "model towns in America most closely
resemble the renowned chapter on snakes in Iceland; for, with but one or two
exceptions, there are none." And he warned against those "who would deck out
our modest villages in Paris finery and ruin their complexions with architectural
cosmetics."

Beginning the Walk

In the center of Station Square are two sturdy police kiosks erected in 1916,
when the nearest precinct house was in Elmhurst. Now they serve as storage for
the gardening supplies of the Friends of Station Square, a volunteer group
formed in 1991 to fend off the railroad's plan to tear down the station, which had
fallen into disrepair. From its steps, on Independence Day, 1915, Theodore
Roosevelt gave his "100 percent American" speech, castigating conscientious
objectors.

Beyond Station Square, gently curved residential streets and narrow lanes
ribbon out toward the south, east and west. Tucked among them are an
occasional secluded circle or close. Only the two "feeder" arteries, Continental
and Ascan Avenues, run straight. Visitors accustomed to Manhattan's rectangular
grids may well lose all sense of direction upon entering the Gardens. "When I
call a car service," says Andreas Krueger, who lives on Middlemay Circle, "I
always allow an extra half-hour for them to find us."

In keeping with the asymmetric plan, the village green called Greenway Terrace
slants off from behind Station Square. While the hands of many architects are on
homes and apartment houses in the Gardens, the residences along Greenway
Terrace are all Atterbury's. The one at No. 65, with its roofed and trellised
sidewalk entrance, once belonged to the actress Thelma Ritter, remembered for
films that include "Rear Window" and "Miracle on 34th Street."

At the circular seating area of high-back benches at the head of the village
green, residents still gather in the shade of chestnut trees to chat in good
weather. Just beyond is Flagpole Park, dominated by the former mainmast of the
yacht Columbia, America's defender of the America's Cup in 1898 and 1901.
One hundred feet tall, capped with the figure of a seagull that is often mistaken
for an eagle, it was an early 1920's gift from the Harriss brothers, residents of
the Gardens. Also on the green is a World War I monument by the sculptor
Adolph A. Weinman, whose "Civic Fame" caps Manhattan's Municipal Building.
The "Mercury" dime and "Liberty" half dollar were also his designs. Weinman's
former home at 23 Greenway South is dominated by the triple height window of
his studio.

Distinctive Houses

Soaring land costs quickly pushed Forest Hills Gardens out of reach of the
working families Olivia Sage hoped to house. But Atterbury did try to keep costs
down by creating attached homes throughout. Their impact, however, is quite
different from the dreary phalanxes of "side by sides" that define much of
Queens. Where tiny Archway Street cuts through a group of attached homes on
Greenway Terrace, for example, Atterbury designed paired apartments over the
arch, with large bay windows overlooking the green.

Or consider the trellis-fronted cottage at 18 Park End Place. Viewed front-on, it
appears to be free standing. From around the corner, one sees that the
"cottage" is actually an end unit on a group of nine attached houses that face the
one-and-a-half-acre Hawthorne Park, one of two private parks in the Gardens.
(Olmsted Jr. felt no need for more parks, as the 535-acre Forest Park is
adjacent to the Gardens.)

On a recent Sunday afternoon, Jane and Miles Siegel, former Upper West Siders
who moved into 18 Park End Place four years ago, were gardening in their small
but flower-filled yard. "The first time we walked under the trestle, it was like
magic to find that this place could exist," Ms. Siegel said.

The homes on Park End Place, like many in the Gardens, have hollow concrete
walls that were precast off site. Atterbury used this technique throughout Forest
Hills Gardens, sometimes mixing into the concrete "soup" broken shells, ceramic
tile and pebbles to give color and texture. "Our walls are incredibly strong," Mr.
Siegel said. "The only problem is trying to hang a picture."

The fabric of life in Forest Hills Gardens � more small town than big city � is
influenced heavily by volunteer committees. The Christmas Eve caroling on the
train station steps, Santa's sleigh ride through the community and his home
delivery of gifts to children are planned by the celebrations committee. An
informal committee got the tower clocks on the inn back on time after a long
hiatus. A temporary committee is now raising money to restore Flagpole Park.

Perhaps the most onerous volunteer duty is the architectural committee, which
tries to maintain the standards set down by Atterbury and Olmsted. Showing a
visitor around the Gardens one recent evening, Elizabeth Murphy, president of
the community association, made note of a driveway that had been widened
without permission, white window frames in one unit of attached homes that
should have been brown like the others, a newly surfaced entrance path to a
house that should have been flagstone but wasn't, and a high hedge that was
"unfriendly."

Erring homeowners are asked by the architectural committee to bring their
homes up to standard. "Some new people think our volunteers are just cute little
things and that they can bully us," said Ms. Murphy, who grew up in the Gardens.
"If they have that attitude, they will see us in court. Our right to protect the
appearance of this place has always been upheld."

Prominent Names

Early on, Forest Hills Gardens was a white community that voted Republican. In
recent years, Asians, Russians, Indians, Iranians and a few black families have
moved in. An Orthodox rabbi lives on Dartmouth Street. Still, a surprising
number of old-time families stay rooted in the Gardens. Robert M. Hof, president
of a local real estate brokerage, and his wife, Susanna, president of the Friends
of Station Square, can each trace five generations in the community: their
grandparents and parents lived here, their daughter was married in the rose
garden of the West Side Tennis Club, and their grandchildren are now growing
up in the Gardens.

The most imposing houses in the Gardens are on the broad arc of Greenway
North. The Norman-style stone mansion at No. 123 once belonged to Trygve Lie,
the Norwegian who was the first secretary general of the United Nations
(1946-53). It faces a group of much humbler attached houses, about the same
length as the mansion. No. 150, now split into two homes, was the home of the
vaudevillian Fred Stone, who played the scarecrow in the 1903 Broadway
production of "The Wizard of Oz." At stately No. 167 lived Michael Miranda,
among those arrested at the infamous gathering of Mafia dons in Apalachin,
N.Y., in 1957.

The finest house in Forest Hills Gardens is at 8 Markwood Road, just off
Greenway North. Its setting on spacious rolling terrain is exceptional in a
community devoted to efficient land use. The house's steep, multiple rooflines,
its use of decoratively infused concrete divided by brick perimeters, its
wrought-iron gates and fine carving make this house the essence of Atterbury.
Indeed, local lore has it that the architect intended to move in, but there is no
proof that he ever did.

Separated from this house by a stone wall is that rarity in New York: a privately
owned park that is open to all. Named Olivia Park in honor of the creator of the
Russell Sage Foundation, this bowl-shaped green acre is where generations of
local children first sledded. Facing the park, at 22 Deepdene Place, is the house
where the family of Geraldine Ferraro lived until a few years ago. Nearby is the
home where the journalist Jimmy Breslin and his first wife, Rosemary, raised
their children. Olivia Park is an ideal spot for a walker in the Gardens to rest or
even picnic.

The most influential local person was not from the world of politics, crime or the
arts, but from sports. Branch Rickey, general manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers
in the 1940's, lived in the red brick house at 34 Greenway South. In October
1945, after two months of secrecy, the story broke that Rickey had signed
Jackie Robinson, setting in motion the desegregation of major league baseball as
well as of other professional sports leagues. (But decades would pass before the
first black family moved into the Gardens.)

Rickey was then a member of the interdenominational Church in the Gardens, a
village-style church designed by Atterbury on Ascan Avenue and paid for by
Olivia Sage. In a letter to Rickey that October, its minister, John Lawrence
Casteel, wrote: "I noticed in the paper this week the statement concerning the
signing of Jack Robinson to the team. This morning, as we were repeating the
Statement of Faith, and you were standing just in front of the reading desk, we
used the expression `the relation of human brotherhood' and I could not help
thinking to myself, `Well, here is one man who has done at least one
outstanding thing to make this come true.' "

Pointing out Rickey's house, Jeff Gottlieb, president of the Central Queens
Historical Society, said, "Nobody famous lives in the Gardens anymore." What
does still live in this community, however, is Olmsted and Atterbury's vision of a
model city, still fresh as it approaches its centenary.

The careful eye catches a wealth of details at Forest Hills Gardens, like this
lantern bracket at Station Square, with its umbrella-clutching commuter dashing
for the train.
Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company
See also WiReD NY.

Posted by dc at 03:06 AM | Comments (0)

NY Wiki

New York Wiki