WHERE: The central part of Flushing, Queens
START/FINISH: Main Street Flushing subway station (7 train), fully accessible. Also reached by Flushing Main Street station (Long Island Rail Road Port Washington Branch), fully accessible, and numerous bus routes.
DISTANCE: 2.25 miles (3.6 kilometers)
Photographs by Michael Cairl except as noted. Map courtesy footpathmap.com.
Flushing is a bustling community in central Queens. Just to the west are Flushing Meadow - Corona Park (site of the 1939 - 1940 and 1964 - 1965 World’s Fairs), the U.S. National Tennis Center (site of the U.S. Tennis Open), and Citi Field (home of the New York Mets). La Guardia Airport is nearby. As Kevin Walsh wrote in his excellent book Forgotten New York:
The land just east of the Flushing River in the center of Queens had been occupied for many centuries by the Matinecock Indians, then by Dutch and English settlers, and later by waves of immigrants, all of whom have put their own particular stamp on the neighborhood.
As recently as the 1950s and 1960s, Flushing was a sleepy town of old-timey Victorian homes protected by shade trees, with a lively downtown centered on Main Street between Northern Boulevard and the Long Island Rail Road Port Washington line. A slow trickle of immigrants from eastern Asia has revitalized the region, but at the cost of its old-fashioned atmosphere as the old Victorian structures were torn down and high-rise apartment buildings and attached houses replaced them.
To be sure, a fair amount of the former Flushing remains, just not in its central core. On this walk I wanted to see historically significant structures in central Flushing, and, of course, have a good lunch at the end, all on an accessible walk.
Main Street, looking north toward Roosevelt Avenue, 1923. Image courtesy New York Transit Museum by way of urbanarchive.org. The subway opened at this intersection in 1927.
Main Street, looking south toward Roosevelt Avenue, 2024.
Route of this walk, reading clockwise from bottom.
Flushing was established as a settlement of New Netherland on October 10, 1645, on the eastern bank of Flushing Creek. It was named Vlissingen, after the Dutch city of Vlissingen. The English took control of New Amsterdam in 1664, and when Queens County was established in 1683, the Town of Flushing was one of the original five towns of Queens.
Flushing played an important role in the establishment of religious liberty in the New World. From Wikipedia:
Unlike all other towns in the region, the charter of Flushing allowed residents freedom of religion as practiced in Holland "without the disturbance of any magistrate or ecclesiastical minister". However, in 1656, New Amsterdam Director-General Peter Stuyvesant issued an edict prohibiting the harboring of Quakers. On December 27, 1657, the inhabitants of Flushing approved a protest known as the Flushing Remonstrance. This petition contained religious arguments even mentioning freedom for "Jews, Turks, and Egyptians," but ended with a forceful declaration that any infringement of the town charter would not be tolerated. Subsequently, a farmer named John Bowne held Quaker meetings in his home and was arrested for this and deported to Holland. Eventually he persuaded the Dutch West India Company to allow Quakers and others to worship freely.
For a fuller discussion of the importance of the Flushing Remonstrance see https://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/27/opinion/27jackson.html. View the text of the Flushing Remonstrance at https://history.nycourts.gov/about_period/flushing-remonstrance/#:~:text=Full%20Text%20of%20the%20Flushing%20Remonstrance%20You%20have,to%20be%2C%20by%20some%2C%20seducers%20of%20the%20people. The importance of this document in American history, and its relevance to the present day, cannot be overstated.
Starting at the busy Main Street subway station, which is the end of the 7 train, I walked north on Main Street. On the west side between 39 Avenue and 38 Avenue is St. George’s Episcopal Church, dedicated in 1854. One of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, Francis Lewis, was a vestryman of this congregation. Somehow this church has survived the cacophony of Main Street. The church offers Sunday services in English, Spanish, and Mandarin.
I continued north on Main Street and turned right onto busy Northern Boulevard (New York Route 25A). Northern Boulevard starts a few blocks from the 59 Street Bridge in Long Island City, goes all the way across Queens, and runs well into Nassau County. The section starting in Flushing was once the Flushing and Bayside Plank Road, later Broadway. Just east of Northern Boulevard is the Friends Meeting House, in continuous use for Quaker services since it was built in 1694 (except during the American Revolution).
Across Northern Boulevard from the Friends Meeting House is the Flushing Town Hall (1862). According to Kevin Walsh, this beautiful building was constructed by a local carpenter. This was seat of government for the Town of Flushing until the western towns of Queens County became part of New York City in 1898. An early speaker at the Town Hall was Frederick Douglass. The eastern towns formed Nassau County. It is now the seat of the Flushing Council on Culture and the Arts and is home to many arts programs.
From the Town Hall I walked east on Northern Boulevard and turned left onto Leavitt Street, toward my next stop, the Lewis Latimer house. Latimer (1848 - 1928), inventor and engineer, was born to previously enslaved parents. He was an assistant to Alexander Graham Bell and later, according to Kevin Walsh,
… [produced] a long-lasting carbon filament that was a major improvement on Edison’s 1878 electric lightbulb. Latimer also developed the first threaded lightbulb socket and assisted in the installation of New York City’s first electric streetlamps.
Latimer’s house was moved to its present location after being landmarked in 1995 and restored.
Lewis Latimer house with Latimer (center) on the porch. Image courtesy Historic House Trust by way of urbanarchive.org.
Lewis Latimer house today.
From there I crossed Leavitt Street and walked east on 34 Avenue, then turned right onto Union Street. At Northern Boulevard, seemingly marooned in the wide median, is Flushing’s World War I memorial.
The crosswalk here crosses westbound Northern Boulevard at an angle. Don’t take your time crossing and don’t expect to cross the eastbound lanes on the same signal. Once all the way across Northern Boulevard, I crossed Union Street and walked uphill on Northern Boulevard to Bowne Street, where I turned right. One block on, on the left side of the street, is a playground and park called the Margaret I. Carman Green. From the New York City Parks website:
Situated in Weeping Beech Park, this plot was named in memory of Margaret I. Carman in 1976. A Flushing native, Carman taught at Flushing High School, which is located across the street, for 44 years. Established in 1875, Flushing High School is the oldest public secondary school in New York City.
Margaret Carman was born on July 12, 1890 to a prominent family rich in history. Her father, Ringgold W. Carman was a member of the Union Army, and a descendant of Revolutionary War hero Captain Henry “Lighthouse Harry” Lee and relative of his legendary son, Confederate General Robert E. Lee (1807-1870). Margaret Carman graduated from St. Joseph’s Academy for Young Ladies, Flushing High School, and Barnard College. She was a lifelong member of the Daughters of the American Revolution. After retiring from her teaching career at Flushing High School in 1960, Carman devoted herself to propagating and maintaining Flushing’s abundant history.
The green is on part of the site of the Parsons Nursery. From the Bowne House website (link below):
Samuel Parsons (1774 - 1841) joined the Bowne family of Flushing when he married Mary Bowne in 1806. Samuel was a Quaker minister and a farmer. Samuel and Mary owned property near the 1661 Bowne homestead to the north and east of Bowne House. Samuel acquired trees and shrubs with the intention of establishing a nursery to pass on to his sons upon his death. That land became the well-known Parsons Nursery.
Samuel refused to own slaves and served as clerk of the New York Meeting. In 1834, he wrote a letter to a Joseph Talcott advising that the New York Meeting had raised over $1000 to move up north free Southern blacks who were being threatened with a return to slavery. Samuel also signed as clerk a long denunciation of slavery issued by the New York Yearly Meeting in June 1837. He wrote about his anti-slavery views in his letters and had friends and colleagues who were abolitionists.
Walking through the green and past a play fountain, on the left is the Kingsland Homestead, built circa 1790 by Joseph Doughty. It is named for his son-in-law, sea captain Joseph King, who bought it in 1802. The Queens Historical Society had the house moved from elsewhere in Flushing to its present location in 1968.
Returning to Bowne Street, I turned left and came upon the Bowne House. This house was built around 1661 by English settler John Bowne, a Quaker ally whom Peter Stuyvesant arrested in 1662. Later, the house might have been a way station on the Underground Railroad. Unfortunately, the house is rarely open to the public. For more about the Bowne House visit https://www.bownehouse.org/.
From the aforementioned article in The New York Times:
The Bowne house is still standing. And within a few blocks of it a modern visitor to Flushing will encounter a Quaker meeting house, a Dutch Reformed church, an Episcopal church, a Catholic church, a synagogue, a Hindu temple and a mosque. All coexist in peace, appropriately in the most diverse neighborhood in the most diverse borough in the most diverse city on the planet.
Indeed.
From the Bowne House I walked to 39 Avenue and turned right, returning to cacophonous present-day Flushing. There are east Asian markets and restaurants everywhere. At Prince Street, one block west of Main Street, I had a delightful lunch at a Taiwanese noodle joint. The jade cucumber was refreshing and the spicy beef noodle soup was perfectly spiced.
From there I made the short walk back to the subway.
There is so much history to absorb in Flushing. Flushing isn’t just the crowds and the many excellent restaurants, although a day eating one’s way around would be a day very well spent. And this is an accessible walk.