Vlissingen received a charter from Willem Kieft, the Dutch governor of New Amsterdam and New Netherland. Vlissingen, named after a city in the Netherlands, was later corrupted by English speakers to “Flushing.”
October 19, 1645
Pieter Andriesen de Schoorsteenveger secured a ground brief, which covered much of Ravenswood. He enjoyed this land only a short time, for he was carried off into captivity by Indians during the “Indian Troubles of 1655.” He was never to be heard of again.
October 1662
After swearing allegiance to Connecticut, Long Island makes a bid to shake off Dutch rule and become part of New England.
October 1727
Between the hours of 11 PM and midnight, two small earthquakes rattle Queens.
October 10, 1789
Sailing up the East River to Flushing, President George Washington, Vice President John Adams, New York Governor George Clinton, and other members of Washington’s cabinet visited the Prince Nursery. The commercial nursery, the first in our new nation, contained, to quote the President,
“fruit gardens and shrubberies.”
Although impressed by the one welcoming cannon salute he received, Washington wrote: “these gardens did not answer my expectations. The shrubs were trifling and the flowers were not numerous.”
October 22, 1789
Two black slaves, Sarah and Nelly, angry at their perceived mistreatment, set fire to the home of Flushing town clerk, Jeremiah Vanderbilt. His house was destroyed along with the town records. The chronicle surrounding the town’s early struggle for religious freedom were destroyed.
Both slaves were convicted in a trial prosecuted by New York Attorney General Aaron Burr at the Queens County courthouse in September 1790. Sarah, the youngest, was eventually reprieved, but Nelly was hanged on October 14, 1790.
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.
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.
October 1881
The Ladies Michigan Relief Association gave a musical entertainment at Smithsonian Hall to collect Long Island City’s relief quota. A festival, where ice cream, cake and other items were provided at nominal cost, was held after the musical entertainment. The ladies had already received a large quantity of clothing and were engaged in packing and forwarding it to Michigan.
The relief effort grew from the great Michigan forest fire of September 1881, which lasted 3 days, destroyed more than one million acres of forest, took 282 lives, and destroyed property valued at $2,250,000. It was also the first relief effort by a new organization, the American Red Cross, founded by Clara Barton earlier in the year.
October 1885
In an effort the lessen the danger to shipping, the nine acre Flood Rock is blasted out of Hell Gate by the US Army Corps of Engineers. It was the largest man-made explosion in history prior to the atomic bomb.
October 04, 1895
Highway Commissioners, with their own hands, chopped down the posts of the Hollis toll house at 186th Street and formally threw Jamaica Avenue open to public travel. The road was a plank turnpike, which its operator, the Hempstead Plank Road Company, had allowed to become dilapidated. On October 15, a Queens Grand Jury indicted the president and directors of the company for maintaining a public nuisance. Paving of the road did not begin until the summer of 1897.
October 29, 1907
Callister’s Wagon Factory in Queens Village was gutted by fire. The fire was so fierce that the Hollis, Creedmoor and Jamaica fire companies all were summoned. They arrived to find that repairs at the Jamaica Pumping Station that day had caused the water supply to the hydrants to be cut off. The plant burned to the ground, at a loss of $75,000.
October 25, 1913
Joseph Witzel, known throughout the entire city as the proprietor of Point View Island, College Point, died at the age of 79 in the café he opened at the corner of Second Avenue and Tenth Street in College Point in 1872. In 1891, after twenty years of success, he opened the Point View Island Resort on the East River between College Point and Whitestone. The place was ideally located as a summer grove for outings, and it soon became famous. Some of the largest organizations in the city held outings there. The grounds were large enough to accommodate as many as four organizations simultaneously holding outings
October 01, 1915
In a moment frozen in time by photographs and postcards
of the era, the massive arches of the Hell Gate Bridge were joined high above
the East River. An engineering marvel at the time the bridge's two halves were
only separated by 5/16 of an inch before being connected. Begun in July 1912
and completed in 1917, the Hell Gate Bridge, more properly the New York Connecting
Railroad Bridge, was the longest bridge of its type. The bridge approach extends
from ground level in Sunnyside and climbs the rail viaduct through Astoria,
over the river, spans Wards and Randalls Islands, and finally crosses over the
Bronx Kill into the Bronx to points north. Train travel from Pennsylvania Station
in New York City to New England was finally and successfully realized.
October 1923
A 75 mph gale hits Queens. Trees and poles are downed and floods block
highways. The temperature ominously climbs 15 degrees in 2 hours. The storm
dumps over 3 inches of rain. Although only four people are hurt, damaged boats
of every description litter Queen's North Shore. Old timers who lived 50 years
on the water claimed never to have seen such damage.
October 23, 1925
The Flushing Line, now the #7 Train, reached 111th Street
in Corona. It reached Main Street in Flushing in 1928.
October 24, 1929
The Air Service Division was established at Glenn Curtiss
Airport (Later LaGuardia Airport) by the NYPD. The future Aviation Unit, beginning
with four flying boats, 12 pilots, and 24 mechanics, was created primarily to
stop daredevil stunt pilots. Their responsibilities expanded with the growth
of commercial and recreational aviation. The nation's first air unit abandoned
fixed wing aircraft in 1954 for helicopters.
October 20, 1936
Anne Sullivan died in Forest Hills. Ms. Sullivan was the famous teacher of Helen Keller. She taught Keller the names of things using the sign language alphabet signed into Keller's palm. She married John H. Macy in 1905, but the marriage fell apart. After that, she lived with Keller in Forest Hills. She had a vision problem since the age of three, but only became completely blind a year before her death. Notable quote, “My heart is singing for joy this morning! A miracle has happened! The light of understanding has shone upon my little pupil's mind, and behold, all things are changed!”
October 04, 1937
Queens College opened on the grounds of a former facility
and school for truant and wayward boys. Now part of the City University of New
York (CUNY) system, its first president, Paul Klapper, opened with a staff of
56 serving 400 students. As of fall 2002, Queens College, at 65-30 Kissena Boulevard,
has an enrollment of 12,000 undergraduate and 4,500 graduate students taught
by over 500 full-time and 500 part time faculty.
October 15, 1939
The New York City Municipal Airport was dedicated. A few weeks later, on November 2, 1939, the name was changed to New York Municipal Airport-LaGuardia Field. A month later, on December 2, 1939, it opened to commercial traffic. On June 1, 1947 the airport was leased to the Port Authority and renamed LaGuardia Airport, after Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia who, incidentally, was also a pilot. A new Central Terminal Building was opened in 1964, enlarged in 1967 and again in 1992. The airport celebrated its 65th anniversary of commercial flight on December 2, 2004.
October 1941
The Borough of Queens gets a statue courtesy of Newbold Morris, President of New York City Council. Officially, ‘Civic Virtue’, but popularly called, ‘Fat Boy’, the monument depicts a muscle man towering majestically overhead.
Unfortunately, MacMonnies, the sculptor, carved it with the hero trampling a woman underfoot–a marble foot crushes her neck.
Banished from City Hall Park, the city places it in front of the Queens Borough Hall with official blessing but without general public approval. About 120 people, mostly Borough Hall employees, are on hand for the dedication.
October 13, 1941
Paul Simon was born in Newark Heights, New Jersey. His family soon moved to Queens, where he attended Forest Hills High School. During that time, he and a friend Art Garfunkel began singing together as a duo, usually performing at school dances.
The duo released an album, ‘Wednesday Morning, 3 AM,’ in 1964, but they did not really become famous until 1966, when a song (The Sounds of Silence) from that album became very popular. Simon and Garfunkel also contributed extensively to the 1968 film The Graduate.
Simon pursued solo projects after the release of Bridge Over Troubled Water in 1970. Both Simon and Garfunkel were inducted into the Rock Hall of Fame in 1990.
October 26, 1944
Mayor LaGuardia and other dignitaries spoke from the platform of a huge concrete mixing machine in a ceremony to mark the beginning of the paving of the first 10,000 foot-long runway at Idlewild Airport. It was slated to be the largest such facility in the world.
LaGuardia also announced that the city had already made plans for a temporary administration building to be followed by a permanent administration building with ticket offices and passenger accommodations. The airport opened to commercial traffic in 1948.
Idelwild would be renamed as Kennedy Airport in 1963.
October 28, 1958
On a rain-soaked evening at Queens’ Idlewild Airport, the Pan American “Clipper America” took off, inaugurating commercial jet travel by a U.S. airline. This scheduled jet flight to Paris, reaching the unheard of speed of 575 mph, greatly reduced travel time from 23 hours to only seven.
A BOAC Comet 4 aircraft, landing at Idlewild, completed the first transatlantic passenger jet flight 24 days earlier.
October 1965
Pope Paul IV visits Our Lady of Mt. Carmel in Astoria, then travels to the World's Fair to view the Pieta at the Vatican Exhibit. During his trip to New York, he celebrates Mass in Yankee Stadium.
October 16, 1969
Behind a 5-hitter by pitcher Jerry Koosman and home runs by Donn Clendenon and Al Weis, the New York Mets defeated the Baltimore Orioles in 5 games to win their first World Series championship. Once the laughing stock of the major leagues, the Mets, in only their eighth season, bested the Chicago Cubs to win the East Division and then swept the Atlanta Braves in three games for the National League crown. This 5-3 victory over the heavily favored Orioles was enjoyed by 57,397 fans at Shea Stadium and by millions in New York and around the country.
During a tumultuous period in American history, the Mets' victory had proven that the underdog can still win and that, perhaps, miracles do happen.
October , 1986
At Shea Stadium in October 1986, the Mets and Red Sox play in what is still considered one of the most dramatic World Series games in history. The top pitcher for both teams, Bob Ojeda for the Mets and Roger Clemens for the Sox, were on the mound. The Mets were down two runs, two outs and two strikes on the tenth inning. The Red Sox already had opened their champagne and the World Series trophy was in their locker room ready for the presentation.
In the next 12 minutes, the Mets managed to do the impossible. With a dramatic three-run rally they defeated the Boston Red Sox, 6-5, and tied the Series at three games apiece. Vin Scully said of this moment, “If a picture is worth a thousand words, you have just seen a million words.”
October , 1989
On October 1989 the Roosevelt Island station on the IND 63rd Street Line of the F line opened with service at all times. With two tracks and two side platforms, and one of the deepest stations in the New York City Subway system (about 100 feet below street level or approximately 10 stories), its unusual high-vaulted ceilings reminds visitors of the Paris Metro and Washington Metro. Roosevelt Island also features a mezzanine visible from tracks, and elevators to street level.
October 06, 1996
Everyone knows that the “King of Queens” and “All in the Family” were staged in Queens, but few knew that Marlo Thomas’s fictional boyfriend was Flushing-born Ted Bessel. Perhaps not widely known today, he was a fixture on television throughout the 1960s and 1970s.
As a young man, he considered both the priesthood and a life as classical musician (as a 12-year-old child prodigy, he performed a piano recital at Carnegie Hall). Ted’s early career included guest appearances in soap operas, and had a role on “Gomer Pyle, USMC” (1964). His big break came on the widely successful Marlo Thomas television series “That Girl” (1966) in the role as Don Hollinger, her boyfriend.
His acting career stalled as the role stereotyped him in roles as ‘the good boyfriend.’ Ted moved towards the direction and production side of television by directing episodes of “The Tracey Ullman Show” (1987) and others throughout the 1990s. Ted died October 6, 1996 aged 61.
October 1997
Douglas Manor, the eastern Queens community, is designated an official
Landmark District joining seventy other historic districts in New York City.
As occurs when an area receives this distinction, designation dramatically increases
a community's property values. Areas surrounding Douglaston are now seeking
designation. People who live in Landmark Districts strongly want them dispelling
the rumor started by developers that landmarking is bad for Queens.
October 2000
The New York Mets lost the first “Subway Series” between New York baseball teams since 1956 when the Brooklyn Dodgers fell to the hated New York Yankees four games to three. This time, Joe Torre’s Bronx Bombers handily beat the Mets four games to one. Loyal Mets fans vowed, “wait ‘till next year!”
