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Then and Now
Queens, New York
The borough of Queens, New York, has seen many historical and geographical changes. Marshlands, woods, and farms gave way to factories, thriving communities, and the nation's premier arterial highway system. Queens offers a rare look at New York City's largest borough, featuring many never-before-seen images.
96 pages, Paperback
First published January 19, 2009
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
December 24, 2018
Although the introductory text and captions were nothing special, and even contained a number of editorial errors, the photographs - before & after comparisons of various sites in Queens, Nassau County and even a location or two in W. Suffolk County (which also used to be part of Queens County long ago) were truly treasure-troves of information, and make this book, like others that trace the development of cities and towns through time, invaluable.
Information is given in a straight-forward style, and it's up to the reader to conclude if progress has always been uniformly positive. The bucolic lanes and pedestrian-friendly streets of long ago, without choking traffic, gave way to relentless street widening and the creation of highways, as people poured into Queens and Long Island after the construction of East River bridges, especially the Queensboro Bridge. Queens' population exploded - along with that of NYC. Far be it for me to comment, since I was born and have always lived in NYC & in a way -- aside from brief stints in other locales -- don't know any other life other than that of the City. The borough of Queens seems to me to be multifarious and impossible to encompass or imagine in a way since it is so huge and spread out - just like the borough of Brooklyn, my birthplace. This book presents views of the Queens that was - contrasted with the Queens that is. We also get some intermediate bird's eye views of the borough as it developed, while there were still giant ash heaps in Corona, before it was filled in with housing and industry (before it de-industrialized).
Queens contained many farms until quite recently -- at least until the Queensboro Bridge was built in 1909. There were private plank toll roads, and dirt roads once.. it was underdeveloped and very sleepy looking up until the 20th C.
The original fast-food burger chain started in Queens - White Castle - and the original outpost (now much expanded) is still at the same location still serving burgers 24/7 - at the corner of Northern & Bell Boulevards in Bayside. In a borough of unending change, this is a rare example of continuity.
At the intersection of Northern Boulevard and Marathon Parkway, the final battle of the English settlers with the Native Americans of Long Island - the Matinecocks - occurred, in 1656. The Indians "...were slaughtered until only women, children and a few old men were all that remained of what was once the largest of all the Long Island tribes." The abruptness of the European conquest of Queens is underlined by the fact that "The first European settlement was made by the Dutch in 1636 near Flushing Bay..." and "The first English English settler ...[arrived in] ...1643 [near Long Island City]."
There are few images of some the last trolleys in Queens - part of a system that were unfortunately dismantled with the arrival of the automobile as a mass consumption product in the 1930s. Also images of phantom trolley tracks that still remain here and there in out of the way places of the borough -- traces of the vanished system. Imagine how much less pollution there would have been had the convenient trolley system been kept in place, and the technology improved upon, rather than forcing municipalities to purchase buses for surface transit that continuously emit harmful pollution and are being shaken every second by their internal combustion engines, rather than running silently and efficiently on electricity alone. Trolleys didn't fall apart as fast because they were not shaken apart by an internal combustion engine. It could have been different, but it was not in the interest of the capitalists running the key industries -- automotive, and oil -- which in turn generated masses of other jobs in various other industries, to promote less-polluting, efficient, quiet trams. The US became a car culture - and the result is apparent everywhere in Queens as in the rest of NYC, with street parking difficult to find, and cars more or less choking the streets.
This book is great for its photographs - some of which are reproductions of wonderful old postcards some bearing messages scrawled by the sender - which give an idea of the startling explosion of development in the borough, which is still underway and unfortunately still resulting in dislocation and displacement as it's invariably accompanied these days by gentrification. There are many spots in the book that I've been to and know well - so for me at least it was highly informative and interesting. Queens seems to have become an adjunct of Manhattan, more so than Brooklyn. Maybe it is because of the network of highways, which Brooklyn mostly lacks. Also, by the time of the great consolidation of the boroughs in the late 19th Century, Brooklyn was really quite a city of its own -- with a central downtown not far from its then bustling docks, as opposed to Queens, which developed around several small towns, with the largest being the trading center of Jamaica, in Central Queens. By the time consolidation occurred I'm not sure if any of Queens' towns had attained a level of the grandeur or greatness of Brooklyn, which had the magnificent Arc de Triomphe-like Grand Army Plaza arch, the magnificence of Prospect Park, the engineering marvel of the Brooklyn Bridge, and so forth. Queens never seemed to be a city on its own, with its own identity - it seemed to be a place to travel to Manhattan from, a place of cheaper housing etc. Not a destination on its own, the way Brooklyn certainly seemed to be for most of its history. The arrival of the highways to Queens only increased that image, since, although it is a good thing that the efficient highway system can get travelers to and from the airports or to and from various parts of Queens usually relatively quickly, you get the impression that that's all the borough is about - a carpet of houses and apartments inserted between the highways, amorphous, jumbled, adjusted to the highways and railroads rather than the other way around. Fortunately, this "fate" never befell Brooklyn - probably because of the higher value real estate in Brooklyn mostly prevented inroads by highways. It would have been illogical to spoil the more valuable real estate. The downside though is that Brooklyn is mostly nightmarish to get around in by car, given the lack of highways and the choking traffic. A ride down Flatbush Avenue from the BQE to Grand Army Plaza - the heart of downtown - is a nightmare, because there is too much traffic. And trying to stop and park is of course out of the question. This area is thickly served by subway lines - which is of course the logical way most Brooklynites visit downtown, once upon a time to shop, prior to the arrival of the malls etc. On the other hand, Queens doesn't have as many train lines as Brooklyn, and Queens seems more spread out and less built up - even today. Cars seem like the more logical transportation solution. However, cars have inevitably led to traffic - it is rather discouraging that new subway lines are never planned for Queens, although it would be the logical solution to its traffic problems. Today, going anywhere in Queens means doing a mental calculation as to what are the chances you will find parking on that day of the week at that specific time once you get there (if the meters have gone off by the time you get there, and if the store you wish to visit is still open by the time the meters have gone off). If it seems an impossibility that you will find a parking spot, that determines more or less if you will go there, so your plans are adjusted accordingly. The destinations that have their own parking are those that you will go to - that is, if you are driving, which in Queens, you usually must drive, unless the place you wish to go to happens to be near the very few train lines that traverse the enormous borough.
Information is given in a straight-forward style, and it's up to the reader to conclude if progress has always been uniformly positive. The bucolic lanes and pedestrian-friendly streets of long ago, without choking traffic, gave way to relentless street widening and the creation of highways, as people poured into Queens and Long Island after the construction of East River bridges, especially the Queensboro Bridge. Queens' population exploded - along with that of NYC. Far be it for me to comment, since I was born and have always lived in NYC & in a way -- aside from brief stints in other locales -- don't know any other life other than that of the City. The borough of Queens seems to me to be multifarious and impossible to encompass or imagine in a way since it is so huge and spread out - just like the borough of Brooklyn, my birthplace. This book presents views of the Queens that was - contrasted with the Queens that is. We also get some intermediate bird's eye views of the borough as it developed, while there were still giant ash heaps in Corona, before it was filled in with housing and industry (before it de-industrialized).
Queens contained many farms until quite recently -- at least until the Queensboro Bridge was built in 1909. There were private plank toll roads, and dirt roads once.. it was underdeveloped and very sleepy looking up until the 20th C.
The original fast-food burger chain started in Queens - White Castle - and the original outpost (now much expanded) is still at the same location still serving burgers 24/7 - at the corner of Northern & Bell Boulevards in Bayside. In a borough of unending change, this is a rare example of continuity.
At the intersection of Northern Boulevard and Marathon Parkway, the final battle of the English settlers with the Native Americans of Long Island - the Matinecocks - occurred, in 1656. The Indians "...were slaughtered until only women, children and a few old men were all that remained of what was once the largest of all the Long Island tribes." The abruptness of the European conquest of Queens is underlined by the fact that "The first European settlement was made by the Dutch in 1636 near Flushing Bay..." and "The first English English settler ...[arrived in] ...1643 [near Long Island City]."
There are few images of some the last trolleys in Queens - part of a system that were unfortunately dismantled with the arrival of the automobile as a mass consumption product in the 1930s. Also images of phantom trolley tracks that still remain here and there in out of the way places of the borough -- traces of the vanished system. Imagine how much less pollution there would have been had the convenient trolley system been kept in place, and the technology improved upon, rather than forcing municipalities to purchase buses for surface transit that continuously emit harmful pollution and are being shaken every second by their internal combustion engines, rather than running silently and efficiently on electricity alone. Trolleys didn't fall apart as fast because they were not shaken apart by an internal combustion engine. It could have been different, but it was not in the interest of the capitalists running the key industries -- automotive, and oil -- which in turn generated masses of other jobs in various other industries, to promote less-polluting, efficient, quiet trams. The US became a car culture - and the result is apparent everywhere in Queens as in the rest of NYC, with street parking difficult to find, and cars more or less choking the streets.
This book is great for its photographs - some of which are reproductions of wonderful old postcards some bearing messages scrawled by the sender - which give an idea of the startling explosion of development in the borough, which is still underway and unfortunately still resulting in dislocation and displacement as it's invariably accompanied these days by gentrification. There are many spots in the book that I've been to and know well - so for me at least it was highly informative and interesting. Queens seems to have become an adjunct of Manhattan, more so than Brooklyn. Maybe it is because of the network of highways, which Brooklyn mostly lacks. Also, by the time of the great consolidation of the boroughs in the late 19th Century, Brooklyn was really quite a city of its own -- with a central downtown not far from its then bustling docks, as opposed to Queens, which developed around several small towns, with the largest being the trading center of Jamaica, in Central Queens. By the time consolidation occurred I'm not sure if any of Queens' towns had attained a level of the grandeur or greatness of Brooklyn, which had the magnificent Arc de Triomphe-like Grand Army Plaza arch, the magnificence of Prospect Park, the engineering marvel of the Brooklyn Bridge, and so forth. Queens never seemed to be a city on its own, with its own identity - it seemed to be a place to travel to Manhattan from, a place of cheaper housing etc. Not a destination on its own, the way Brooklyn certainly seemed to be for most of its history. The arrival of the highways to Queens only increased that image, since, although it is a good thing that the efficient highway system can get travelers to and from the airports or to and from various parts of Queens usually relatively quickly, you get the impression that that's all the borough is about - a carpet of houses and apartments inserted between the highways, amorphous, jumbled, adjusted to the highways and railroads rather than the other way around. Fortunately, this "fate" never befell Brooklyn - probably because of the higher value real estate in Brooklyn mostly prevented inroads by highways. It would have been illogical to spoil the more valuable real estate. The downside though is that Brooklyn is mostly nightmarish to get around in by car, given the lack of highways and the choking traffic. A ride down Flatbush Avenue from the BQE to Grand Army Plaza - the heart of downtown - is a nightmare, because there is too much traffic. And trying to stop and park is of course out of the question. This area is thickly served by subway lines - which is of course the logical way most Brooklynites visit downtown, once upon a time to shop, prior to the arrival of the malls etc. On the other hand, Queens doesn't have as many train lines as Brooklyn, and Queens seems more spread out and less built up - even today. Cars seem like the more logical transportation solution. However, cars have inevitably led to traffic - it is rather discouraging that new subway lines are never planned for Queens, although it would be the logical solution to its traffic problems. Today, going anywhere in Queens means doing a mental calculation as to what are the chances you will find parking on that day of the week at that specific time once you get there (if the meters have gone off by the time you get there, and if the store you wish to visit is still open by the time the meters have gone off). If it seems an impossibility that you will find a parking spot, that determines more or less if you will go there, so your plans are adjusted accordingly. The destinations that have their own parking are those that you will go to - that is, if you are driving, which in Queens, you usually must drive, unless the place you wish to go to happens to be near the very few train lines that traverse the enormous borough.
June 2, 2021
Some nice photos, but desperately needed a fact check. The few pages devoted to my own neighborhood were so riddled with factual errors (such as locations of particular photos) that they made me dismiss the rest of the book entirely.
October 29, 2022
Good pictorial history
It was a quick read. Interesting before and now pictures. As a former Queens resident it contains history I knew nothing about. More historical detail would have been nice.
It was a quick read. Interesting before and now pictures. As a former Queens resident it contains history I knew nothing about. More historical detail would have been nice.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews