Profile of yesterday’s walk.
WHERE: 37 Road ramp street and 25 Avenue stair street, Queens
START: 111 Street subway station (7 train)
FINISH: Northern Boulevard at Junction Boulevard - Q66 bus to 21 Street - Queensbridge subway station (F train; fully accessible)
DISTANCE: 2.8 miles (4.5 kilometers)
Photographs by Michael Cairl. Maps courtesy Google Maps.
Route of yesterday’s walk.
Papa’s Kitchen, on 83 Street in Jackson Heights.
37 Road ramp street.
I think this walk wrapped up the stair streets in Queens - actually, a ramp street and a stair street. On this warm day, after a fine lunch at Papa’s Kitchen, a Filipino restaurant in the Jackson Heights neighborhood, I moved east to Corona to begin today’s walk. The route of the walk took me through a a low-rise residential area and a nice sampler of the ethnic crazy quilt that is Queens. Starting at the 111 Street subway station, I walked through a mostly South American and Dominican neighborhood, with a large Korean church on 111 Street. At 110 Street and 37 Avenue was a ramp street leading up to 37 Road that I learned about from Kevin Walsh’s excellent site, https://forgotten-ny.com/. Perhaps there were once stairs there.
From there I went to the Louis Armstrong House Museum on 107 Street. The jazz pioneer Louis Armstrong (1900-1971), also known as Satchmo or Pops, and his wife Lucille made this house in the Corona neighborhood their home in 1943 and stayed. I had hoped to tour the house but hadn’t thought of reserving a space, and the next tour was completely full. So I’ll go back another day after having made a reservation. There’s an incredible richness in this city that lies just beneath the surface, a subway ride away, open to those who look up and listen.
From there I kept walking to and along Ditmars Boulevard, a broad, leafy, surprisingly quiet residential street within hailing distance of La Guardia Airport. A few blocks on, I came to the stair street at 25 Avenue, 20 steps up. This short stairway is in very nice condition.
Outside the Louis Armstrong House Museum, outside a house at 34 Avenue and 108 Street, 25 Avenue stair street, and an old wrought-iron lamp standard below the modern streetlight. This one would have had a red light to denote the fire alarm box to the left. Thousands of this type used to be on roads all over the city and Nassau County as streetlights. (Another shout-out to Kevin Walsh and Forgotten New York.)
Continuing on through East Elmhurst, I came upon irregularities in the street grid: a clutch of named, not numbered, streets intersecting 25 Avenue and, at Astoria Boulevard and 96 Street, a tiny park with some very welcome benches called Trolley Car Triangle. Here’s information on the triangle and the neighborhood from the NYC Parks website:
This site references the historic Grand Street trolley line that once ran through this area. Trolley Car Triangle, bounded by Astoria Boulevard and 97th Street, was developed as a park in 1927. The City acquired the property in September 1928 by condemnation, and NYC Parks immediately gained jurisdiction. The park was originally known as Street Car Triangle, but was renamed Trolley Car Triangle in 1997.
The first-ever Brooklyn City trolley car entered Queens County in May 1894. At the end of the month, the Grand Street line was opened, running between the Maspeth Depot and Broadway. The line was soon extended to Junction Avenue and across to Bowery Bay.
The opening of the line was a ceremonious event during which the first trolley car to travel the line carried a roster of distinguished passengers that included the president of the Brooklyn Heights Rail Road. When the car reached Jackson’s Mill during the opening run, the passengers stopped to tour the old mill whose water wheel and grinding stones were then still intact. They then continued on to enjoy Gala Amusement Park on Bowery Bay, the current site of La Guardia Airport.
The neighborhood of East Elmhurst, through which the line ran, has inadvertently preserved a rich history of the trolley lines. During the 1920s and 1930s, developers built up streets on both sides of Bowery Bay Road and Flushing Avenue, now Astoria Boulevard. Since the Brooklyn City Rail Road did not want to negotiate a new franchise, it kept the line as it was, and residents became used to trolley traffic in their backyards. In the 1930s, the other parcels of Old Bowery Bay Road and Flushing Avenue were eliminated, so the trolley tracks were the only testament to old street configurations. A decade later, the city paved over much of the line; however, one can still find spots of exposed trolley tracks and original bricks where the pavement has worn away, thus affording a glimpse of 1890s Queens.
Founded by the Dutch in 1652, Elmhurst was originally known as Newtown. It encompassed the northwestern portion of Queens for over two centuries, until Long Island City was given a separate charter in 1870. In the 1890s, the Cord Meyer Development Company completely transformed the Newtown area, laying out streets, building new residences, and creating new neighborhoods. In 1896, Cord Meyer, the owner of the company, named his development Elmhurst, meaning "a grove of elms." His intention was to disassociate the neighborhood from the foul smells of Newtown Creek, a tributary of the East River that runs inland for three miles and serves as the boundary between the boroughs of Brooklyn and Queens.
During the 1940s through the 1960s, the neighborhood of East Elmhurst was a haven for renowned jazz musicians, actors, and entertainers including Ella Fitzgerald, Ray Brown, Harry Belafonte, Charlie Shavers, Ray Bryant and Charles “Honi” Coles, and the legendary Major League Baseball center fielder, "The Say Hey Kid", Willie Mays.
From Trolley Car Triangle I walked a short distance south on 97 Street, which does not quite conform to the street grid, to Jackson Mill Road. For the origin of that street name, see the passage from NYC Parks immediately preceding. A few more blocks and I came upon the Louis Armstrong School - Intermediate School 227 at 32 Avenue and Junction Boulevard, with a nice streetside mural of the community, music, and Louis Armstrong.
The journey to a ramp street and a stair street was complemented by wandering through areas I hadn’t been to before, always a treat. I’ll definitely return to the Louis Armstrong House Museum, and to Papa’s Kitchen.
Trolley Car Triangle, and the Louis Armstrong School.