Sergey
Kadinsky
Photography
The following photographic essay about a
forgotten stream was created as a local history project for Forgotten-NY, a
website dealing with the hidden aspects of New York City history. Launched by
Kevin Walsh in 1999, it has since been published into a book.
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While the Park Avenue of Manhattan is a
world-famous name and brand, its Bronx counterpart is lined by a noisy
railroad track and warehouses. The Park Avenue of Brooklyn is hidden beneath
an unsightly elevated highway, and the Park Avenue of Staten Island is in a
quiet neighborhood known as Port Richmond.
So where is the Park Avenue of Queens? How wealthy is it? Would I
expect to find a taxi here? |
Compared to the other Park Avenues of
this city, this Park Avenue is an infant, having been opened to traffic as
recently as 1986. Ironically, you may have an easier time parking on Manhattan's
Park Avenue than the Park Avenue of Queens, which is a privately-owned road.
Located at the juncture of
Kew Garden Hills, Hillcrest, and Electchester, the
land on which Park Avenue lies was the last to be developed in the area, as the
1950s aerial image below shows. The site appears to be a previously undeveloped
lot.
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This block is bound by 71st Avenue on top, 163rd Street on
the right, 72 Avenue on the bottom, and Parsons Boulevard on the far left.
Four streets, from 159th to 162nd, puncture the block midway as cul-de-sacs.
They are lined with postwar tract housing.
On the right is a property map from Oasinyc.org showing the current
situation. |
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Chart the course
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This 1928 Belcher-Hyde Atlas detail shows the block
in its infancy. the undeveloped space on top is the Pomonok Golf Course.
The street grid to the south was organized by the Star Realty Co.
Initially the streets had names, but were assigned numbers as part of a
larger borough-wide number grid. |
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Van Dine Avenue
became 72 Avenue. The extra-wide Star Avenue (historically known as Black
Stump Road) became 73rd Avenue, stretching from Kew Garden Hills towards the borough's eastern edge.
Silver St. became
160th St./Park Ave. Moscow Place became 161st St./Sutton Pl. Central St.
became 162 St. Notice the old toll barrier on Parsons Boulevard. This is the
present-day junction between Parsons and Kissena Blvds. The green property
line would explain the bend in the block that resulted after the streets
were extended north onto the golf course's former property. |
Grounding the club
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This 1949 Hagstrom map shows the urban grid on
Hillcrest, with the golf course as the holdout. By 1951, its eastern half
will become the union-owned Electchester and the city-owned Pomonok housing
projects. The bend in Kissena Boulevard was straightened and the old roadway
curve became the two block-long Aguilar Avenue. |
Murder
on 162 Street: Missy Crimmins
it was on the once-vacant lot at 162 Street, where on
July 14, 1965, 9-year-old Jay Silverman, found the body of 5-year-old Missy
Crimmins. A pajama top, knotted into two ligatures, was loosely tied around her
bruised neck.
The Crimmins case ranks alongside the Kitty Genovese case in the annals of
Queens-based mystery crimes. The mother, Alice Crimmins, is widely reputed as
the murderer of her daughter, and son Eddie, whose body was found near the Van
Wyck Expressway. At the time, Mrs. Crimmins resided in Kew Gardens Hills.
Little
Alice Marie "Missy" Crimmins is buried at St. Raymond's cemetery in the
Bronx, with her brother Eddie. It may have been this
morbid detail that discouraged developers from building on this block. Crimmins'
trial was one of the most sensational local trials in the late 60s- early 70s.
In the early 1980s, the Estates at Hillcrest
purchased this property, with the intent of building townhouse condos. To give
the property an attractive image, the privately owned extensions of 160th and
161st Streets became Park Avenue and Sutton Place, respectively. The true
mystery here is how the city allowed the developer to get away with this. You
see, on the Queens street grid, an Avenue, Road, or Drive should not go parallel
with a Street or Place. Not only does Park Avenue do this, but in the
middle of the block, it transforms into 160th Street! What a
rebellious infant! Even the mapmakers found this hard to believe, and on Hagstrom maps, the block is labeled "160th Street (Park Avenue)"
I wonder if the residents have problems with pizza deliveries.
Demarcating the streets
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While Park Avenue and Sutton Place appear on the map, the
city indicates that they are private by extending the curb over the
intersections at 71st Avenue. |
Air conditioners in architecture
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The housing appears to be a permanent ad for Fedders.
Thankfully, the trees cover the ugly "advertising." |
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This new building has a
website. It also has a rap sheet containing 24 construction violations.
Many of its
new neighbors are also out-of-context, and in violation of building
regulations. Where are our elected officials when we need them?. |
The district office
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Actually, the elected officials are very close to home.
Assemblywoman Nettie
Mayersohn's district office is on the corner of Park Avenue and 71st
Avenue. But don't count on her to save the neighborhood.
She supports the redevelopment of Willets Point, too.
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Dishing out art
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On the northeast corner of the Park Avenue block is the 107th police
precinct of the NYPD, built in 1995. The dish-like object on the rooftop is
a public art sculpture emphasizing the theme of
communications. You are not being monitored. |
The
faceless future
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The photo on the right was taken by Queens Crap, and it shows a typical" Fedders Tenement,"
defined by its faceless uniformity and lack of design. How sad that the Park
Avenue of Queens is lacking in taste, failing to live up to its name. |
Still hungry? Order yourself a few
more
Forgotten Slices.
© August 13, 2008
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