Heinrich Engelhard Steinweg, his wife and five sons immigrated from Germany. He soon Anglicized his name to “Henry E. Steinway.” In 1853, he founded the piano manufacturing firm of Steinway & Sons in Manhattan. In 1870-1872, the firm was moved to Astoria, Queens, where Steinway still produces the finest pianos in the world.
October 1852
James Riker published his landmark town history, The Annals of Newtown, a comprehensive chronicle of old Newtown Township, the area of Queens west of Flushing Meadows. The book, a narrative of Newtown from its first European settlement to about 1800, is considered the finest book on Queens history ever attempted. To produce this work, Riker collected original document from the colonial era, copied extracts from manuscripts in state and local archives and corresponded extensively with historians.
Riker, whose family settled in Queens almost from the time of its earliest European settlement (they owned Rike’s Island), was also able to draw upon the collective memory of family and neighbors whose ancestors actually experienced the events described in the book. The last section deals with extensive local family genealogies.
May 1853
Ground is broken for the Flushing Railroad. It was seen as a convenient alternative to a Manhattan ferry service often blocked by ice and other hazards. The railroad could not build through Greenpoint or Williamsburg and was forced into Hunters Point, a deserted unsettled area. The rail company had to drain a swamp, build a dock and arrange for ferry service into Manhattan.
September 1853
In September 1853, the directors of the Flushing Railroad made a decision that would forever change the face of western Queens. Instead of terminating their railroad in Williamsburg or Greenpoint, as originally planned they decided to choose the low sand hills and marsh of Hunters Point.
The Brooklyn option had became complicated. Over their mayor’s veto, Williamsburg citizens insisted that the railroad stop a few miles from the waterfront. From there, the rail cars would then have to get to the East River ferry via a single track. Horse teams would take an hour to negotiate the traffic and distance.
By contrast, the railroad only had to persuade a few reluctant farmers to give it the right of way for a direct rail line to the East River through relatively sparsely populated Woodside and Corona in Queens. When the Long Island Rail Road also chose Hunters Point six years later, their Long Island Terminal became the most important community on Long Island.
December 12, 1853
The Myrtle Avenue and Jamaica Plank Road was opened from western Brooklyn to Jamaica Avenue in Richmond Hill. The early 1850s saw the construction of numerous plank roads made of hemlock, oak, and pine planks, eight feet long and up to four inches thick. They were considered an improvement from the dirt turnpike road which were nearly impassable in winter and early spring due to freezing and mud.
There was a tollgate at Cypress Avenue and the plank road cut through Myrtle Avenue Park, now Forest Park. Planks soon rotted planks making the plank road's success short-lived.
February 28, 1854
The ‘Astoria Hook & Ladder Company No 1’ is organized. Although four companies are ultimately created in the Village, fire fighting remains hazardous and primitive at best. With no fire hydrants, the Astoria Village relies on cisterns built at intersections. Equipment from Astoria and later companies at Steinway and Long Island City can be seen today at the New York City Fire Department Museum in Manhattan.
May 1854
“Winfield” was born. It was named after General Winfield Scott, Mexican War hero and General of the Army. In 1853, General Scott moved to New York and brought with him the Army's command center. He instantly became a member of high society and a local New York celebrity. Manhattan developers G.G. Andrews and J.F. Kendall founded this hamlet in northwestern Queens and named it in his honor. The neighborhood eventually became part of Woodside, and its name disappeared, but not before it was a major link on the Long Island Railroad and home to industry manufacturing Singer sewing machines and metal coffins.
Some text courtesy forgotten-ny.com
June 24, 1854
Fashion Race Course opens in West Flushing, capitalizing on a sport that was popular in Queens since the early eighteenth century. Although this trotting track closed in only a few years, it reopened as National Race Course, leaving its name on Corona’s National Avenue.
September 02, 1854
In College Point, Conrad Poppenhusen opened the India Hard Rubber Comb Company. Licensed to manufacture hard rubber goods by Charles Goodyear, Poppenhusen's factory made and sold a broad array of items for household, industrial, medical, and luxury items. By 1877 the firm's product line included surgical supplies, photographic goods, thimbles, funnels, soap trays, drinking flasks, inkstands, insulators, and doll heads. Poppenhusen Institute (opened 1870) at 14th Road and 114th Street is a monument to Conrad’s influence and vision for College Point.
January 1857
Queens suffered through a severe winter with temperatures averaging 19.7 degrees Fahrenheit. The Long Island Sound and East River were icebound for 30 days, halting sailing and stem-powered ships from delivering their goods to the affected ports. Icebound ports prompted calls to expand the Long Island Railroad making the free flow or goods and commuters available every day in Queens regardless of the weather. Today, the Coast Guard patrols the rivers keeping them from freezing over so that vital barge traffic for oil and other commodities flow freely in New York harbor.
April 1859
New York State Legislature passes a bill allowing the incorporation of one of the first commercial banks in Queens County. The bank opens in Flushing under the name ‘Queens County Savings Bank.’
April 1859
The Flushing, College Point & New York Steam Navigation Company was incorporated. The company was formed to produce a transportation alternative to the Flushing Railroad, which also operated two steamboats. Oliver Charlick, the railroad president, arranged timetables to please himself, eliminated popular trains and raised fares, thus ignoring entirely the wishes of the riding public. Several wealthy men of Flushing organized the new steamboat line to entice riders away from the railroad and its steamboats. The company’s first boat was, not surprisingly, named the Flushing. It began service on June 1, 1860.
July 25, 1859
The New York and Jamaica Railroad Company, a company formed by the Long Island Railroad, began construction of a new railroad from Winfield Junction (in present day Woodside) to Hunters Point. At the Hunters Point terminus of The railroad, construction began on car houses, engine houses, machine shops and the depot required for the new railroad. Many believed that a flourishing village would grow up around this locality and, of course, the village of Hunters Point did.
November 19, 1859
On November 19, 1869, the Long Island Star (making some observations on new development of that day) notes “the commissioners of the Greenpoint Avenue and Woodside Road seemed to be determined to give us a good one with plans to make the roadway 28 feet wide, with another 8 feet for gutters and an additional 15 feet sidewalks. Getting the roads curbed and guttered, as well as tree planting are planned for the future. The increase in the value is truly wonderful. Only a few years since, land could be had from four to five hundred dollars an acre, and although $3,000 is now refused, owners complain yet of heavy taxes. These grumblers ought to sell out and let some enterprising New Yorkers get hold of their property. Then we should soon have Newtown with a population far in excess of the whole of Queens County. The attractions are so great, the distance so small from the city, and the building sites so desirable in Woodside, that people are buying up lots very fast at high prices. Nearly every lot in the beautiful village of Woodside is already disposed of, so great is the demand for building sites.”
April 16, 1860
The steamboat “Flushing,” built in Greenpoint Brooklyn, begins her New York run charging a 10-cent fare. Chartered by the Federal Government during the Civil War, the Flushing runs aground on the James River. Refloated, and brought back to East River service, she is in use for only a few months before being sold to a syndicate in Nova Scotia. After giving her a new name, they promptly send the steamer to the South as a blockage runner for the Confederacy. Trapped in the Savannah River, she is run aground and burned in December 1864.
February 21, 1861
The first postmaster is appointed in Long Island City. Postal service was founded by Benjamin Franklin in the early years of the republic, and post offices were soon set up in stores in Jamaica, the Alley in Flushing and Newtown.
Mail was delivered by circuit riders on horseback who traveled out to Long Island, then back, on a regular basis. The recipient used to pay for the postage until stamps were introduced in the mid-1800s.
Today post office stations exist for Far Rockaway, Floral Park, Flushing, Jamaica, and Long Island City.
August 29, 1861
On August 29, 1861, a group of citizens from (Newtown) Elmhurst tried to organize a meeting to support a ‘Peace Convention’ with the intention of sending delegates to a National Convention which would seek to end the Civil War. They wanted to end the bloodshed by negotiating ‘on the honorable course of conciliation’ with the southern states that had seceded. A group of irate pro-Union citizens, upon hearing of plans for the appeasement meeting, paid for a special train that left Flushing. It brought over 200 persons to the conference.
That evening, when over 1,200 people (including a group from Jamaica and other outlying hamlets) surrounded the hall, the meeting was canceled. After a series of fiery speeches, the mob proceeded to the meeting’s organizer, and after forcing him from his home, made him raise an American flag in his front yard. The next morning he found his yard littered with dead cats.
December 03, 1861
On December 3, 1861, Jamaica residents lodged a formal protest with the management of the Brooklyn Central and Jamaica RR. Despite the rail company’s charter that called for service to at least 10:00 PM, the company refused to schedule a train after 7 PM.
“ Unless one was ready to rent an expensive carriage,” a newspaper editor complained, “all communication [with Brooklyn] is shut off as if the road was in possession of an enemy.”
October 1865
Thomas Todd founds the Long Island Star. Starting as a weekly paper, then expanding to a daily, Todd successfully runs a newspaper in Queens independent
of political parties. In the 1930s, the paper absorbs Flushing's North Shore Journal and becomes the Long Island Star-Journal. It lasts until the mid 1960s.
March 25, 1867
The first serious fire in Astoria occurred. A stable, jewelry store and the second and third stories of the Odd Fellows Hall, abutting the stable, were destroyed. The firemen of the village fought the fire valiantly, even though one of their fire engines was out of service. Damage was in the thousands of dollars. Wooden buildings, inadequate fire mains and equipment, and poor safety regulations in industry resulted in a series of spectacular fires over the next decades.
September 28, 1867
Theodore Vietor, one of the early prominent residents of Newtown Village died. Vietor had come to America from Germany as a young man. He became a wealthy merchant and eventually built and lived in a house at Broadway and Elmhurst Avenue. In 1861, he took on a young Irish immigrant named Morris Connolly as his estate manager. Morris Connolly later became the father of Maurice Connolly, the fifth borough president of Queens.
January 1869
The Bretonniere house at 57th Avenue and Hoffman Drive (now Queens Boulevard) was destroyed by fire. During the American Revolution (1776-1783), this
had been the old Samuel Renne house which served as the headquarters for British Army General Sir William Howe. Here, on September 3, 1776, Howe penned his famous report on the August 1776 Battle of Long Island (also called the Battle of Brooklyn). British officers and troops were billeted throughout Queens County until the revolution’s end.
February 18, 1869
Sheet music publisher and Woodside developer Benjamin Hitchcock distributed 972 lots to shareholders of the new Village of Woodside. After convincing the heirs of the Kelley estate to develop their property, he came up with a novel scheme to encourage investors. All lots were priced at $300 (with monthly installments at $10). After he received 25% of the amount, a lottery determined the actual distribution of property, with the best locations with buildings going first, and the less desirable at the end.
April 15, 1869
On April 15, 1869, the Village of Whitestone is incorporated within the town of Flushing. Although it was the home of Declaration of Independence signer Francis Lewis, the first 200 years were uneventful. Its real growth started with the move from Brooklyn of the tin-ware firm John Locke in 1845 who built over a dozen buildings and employed more than 300 people. During the next decade, the settlement grew and a number of churches opened, a newspaper set up and a volunteer fire company established. When the Village was incorporated, John Locke was its first chairman.
August 1869
The Steinway Free Circulating Library opens. It is later absorbed into the Long Island City Public Library, then the Queensborough Public Library.
Today, the portrait of founder William Steinway still watches from the wall of the main Reading Room of the library's Steinway Branch.
November 11, 1869
Queens Boulevard runs northwest to southeast across more than half the length of the borough, starting at the Queensboro Bridge in Long Island City and running through the neighborhoods of Sunnyside, Woodside, Jackson Heights, Elmhurst, Rego Park, Forest Hills, Kew Gardens, and Briarwood before terminating at Jamaica Avenue in Jamaica. At 7.2 miles, it is the one of the longest roads in Queens, and it runs through some of Queens’ busiest areas. Much of the road is 12 lanes wide, and at its intersection with Yellowstone Boulevard in Forest Hills, it reaches a high point of 16 lanes. Along much of its length, the road includes both six express lanes (three in each direction) and a service road on each side. Drivers must first exit to the service road in order to make right turns or pull over; left turns must be made from the express lanes, but only at select cross-streets.
Queens Boulevard was built in the early 20th century to connect the new Queensboro Bridge to central Queens, thereby offering an easy outlet from Manhattan. It was created by linking and expanding already-existing streets, such as Thomson Avenue and Hoffman Boulevard, stubs of which still exist. It was widened along with the digging of the IND Queens Boulevard Line subway tunnels in the 1920s and 1930s, and some speculated the plan was to transform it into a freeway, as was done with the Van Wyck Expressway. The city actually did propose converting it in 1941, but with the onset of World War II, the plan was never completed.
The combination of Queens Boulevard’s immense width, heavy automobile traffic, and thriving commercial scene made it the most dangerous thoroughfare in New York City and earned it citywide notoriety and morbid nicknames such as “The Boulevard of Death” and “The Boulevard of Broken Bones.” From 1993 to 2000, 72 pedestrians were killed trying to cross the street, an average of 10.2 per year, with countless more injuries. Since 2001, at least partially in response to major news coverage of the danger, the city government has taken measures to cut down on such incidents, including posting large signs proclaiming that “A Pedestrian Was Killed Crossing Here” at intersections where fatal accidents have occurred and installing more road-rule enforcement cameras. These efforts appeared to be successful; during all of 2004, only one pedestrian was killed while trying to cross Queens Boulevard
It opened in 1873 as a two lane road. Originally called “Buttermilk Hollow”, it became “Whitepot Pike”, then “Queens Pike”, and then “Hoffman Boulevard” after New York City Mayor and New York State Governor, John Hoffman. For 2 years during the 1939 World's Fair, it was called “World’s Fair Boulevard&ldquot;. The 1928 picture shows Queens Boulevard before it was widened and improved in the mid-1930's
May 24, 1870
The governor signs a bill incorporating Long Island City, uniting into one entity the Village of Astoria, along with the hamlets of Hunters Point, Blissville, Dutch Kills, Ravenswood, Middletown, and Steinway.
Long Island City, the county seat for the six townships of Queens County (today Nassau and Queens) came into existence partly through the efforts of Father Crimmins, a priest at St. Mary’s Parish in Hunters Point. When Greater New York was set up in 1898, the cities of New York, Brooklyn, and Long Island City, along with scores of smaller villages and hamlets, were consolidated into one of the greatest cities in the world.
June 29, 1870
Jacob and Joseph Burroughs sell some 30 acres to the Trustees of St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York City. This property, along with several later purchases made from additional Burroughs siblings, becomes the nucleus for the New Calvary Cemetery. Within its boarders is a cemetery within a cemetery. Nestled at the southwest corner of 58th Street and Queens Boulevard is the colonial Cumberson family cemetery.
February 1871
The Centerville Race Track, southeast of the intersection of Woodhaven and Rockaway Blvds., is sold to the New York and Hempstead Railroad for $40,000. The railroad is not interested in racing horses, but wants the property for a right-of-way. Between the 1830s and 1850s, ads for spring and fall meets at the track list all the famous horses from that era. Centerville was an important element of the nation’s horse racing industry whose hub was on the Hempstead Plains during the Nineteenth Century.
November 1871
Plans were finalized for the foundry and sawmill of the Steinway Piano factory in Astoria. By the spring of 1873, these and boiler and engine houses were complete. Piano making operations were transferred gradually from Manhattan to Queens, however the giant piano case factory did not open until 1879. Along with moving their business, the Steinways created an entire village for their workers with housing, transportation links, and schools.
April 01, 1872
On April 1, 1872, the Sohmer Piano Company was founded.
February 15, 1873
On February 15, 1873, the name “Corona” first appeared in the newspapers replacing the former name, West Flushing. Thomas Howard, a local resident, found that the name confused both outsiders and the post office with neighboring Village of Flushing.
He petitioned Washington for a name change in 1870 proposing “Corona” that suggested, in his eyes, that the community was the “Crown of Long Island”
The application indicated that Corona had 600 residents who lived within a mile of the rail station. The application was approved two years later with Howard himself as the first postmaster.
March 01, 1874
The horse car line along Borden Avenue from Hunters Point to Calvary Cemetery opened. It was a trolley-like car pulled by horses along a set of rails or tracks. The Roman Catholic Calvary Cemetery, in use since 1848, became a major burial ground for families from Manhattan after the city forbid interments south of 155th Street on the rapidly growing island. The expanding cemetery eventually absorbed most the hamlet of Blissville.
September 26, 1874
The first international rifle competition between a world championship team of Irish challengers and Americans was held at the Creedmoor rifle range. Eight thousand spectators came to Creedmoor by railroad to witness the event. The crowd was hushed as the lead American rifleman, who was about to fire the decisive shot, was cut in the hand, when a glass of ginger beer he was drinking suddenly exploded in the heat. Even though he was bleeding, he scored a bullseye. The Americans won the match, earning worldwide respect.
