Tuesday, January 19, 2021 – INTERESTING SITES IN NEARBY QUEENS

By admin

TUESDAY, JANUARY 19, 2021

The

266th  Edition

From Our Archives

KNOWN AND UNKNOWN SITES

IN ASTORIA

 A CEMETERY, A BALL FIELD

AND A TRIANGULAR BUILDING IN ASTORIA

This tidy, well maintained cemetery is the last vestige of Our Land of Mount Carmel ‘s previous location on 21st Street and 26th Avenue.

You may have driven by it for many years, as I have, and wondered why this cemetery is on a busy thoroughfare.

Behind a chain link fence in Astoria, Queens, in the shadow of the Triborough Bridge, sits a small cemetery. Some of the gravestones are toppled over, while others are still standing straight.

The land belongs to Our Lady of Mt. Carmel Church, which long ago sat adjacent to the churchyard before moving up the street from its original home on what used to be called Emerald Avenue. It was located within the heart of a rapidly growing Irish community.

Many Irish immigrants arrived in New York during and after the Great Famine (1845 to 1849). Some settled in Astoria, where they worked as servants in the houses of the wealthy as well as in factories and greenhouses. Soon, the community grew so large that the Catholic congregation outgrew its church.

As the first generations passed on, they were buried in Our Lady of Mt. Carmel Cemetery, which was used mostly from the 1840s through the 1890s. All the names etched into the gravestones, save one, are Irish. Also buried among the 150 or so graves is the church’s Italian gardener.

The cemetery is not normally open to the public, but in recent years, the parish has celebrated mass there on certain holidays. A small sign reminds people to curb their dogs. Another says that the plot is maintained by the Archdiocese of Brooklyn.

The church is now located at 2325 Newtown Ave, Astoria, NY 11102

WHITEY FORD FIELD

While researching the long lost Hell Gate Lighthouse, Whitey Ford Field was revealed. The field has been a the point of Hallett’s Cover neighborhood for years and the light has been there for 2 centuries guarding and guiding ships thru the hazardous Hell Gate.

The ball field is operated by the NYC Parks Department. Two new building are already occupied and many more to come in the Hallets Point development.

Since the early 1800’s there has been a light at the spot. At one time we had Fort Steven’s to protect us from the British.

Both images from 1814 just a few minutes from the north point of Blackwell’s Island.

L. GALLY BUILDING

Forgotten New York

Four roads converge at Astoria Square on the eastern edge of old Astoria Village, first established by fur merchant Stephen Ailing Halsey in 1839, who laid out streets and built the first structures in the area surrounding Hallett’s Cove in northwest Queens. 

Astoria was named for a man who apparently never set foot in it. A bitter battle for naming the village was finally named by supporters and friends of John Jacob Astor (1763-1848). Astor, entrepreneur and real estate tycoon who had made his money in the fur trade, had become the wealthiest man in America by 1840 with a net worth of over $40 million. The beasts that contributed their furs were hunted and trapped in the northwest part of North America, in Astor’s day still owned by the British; later, a town named Astoria sprang up in the state of Oregon.

21st Street (originally Van Alst Avenue; the name is remembered by a G train subway station a few miles south of here); Astoria Boulevard, once known as Flushing Avenue because it stretched east to Flushing Creek and the town of the same name beyond it; 27th Avenue; and Newtown Road, perhaps the original road established in the area by Native Americans in the pre-colonial era, which led form the East River through the swamps to what we now call Woodside are the four roads that meet here.

In 1889 L. Gally established a furniture store and built this handsome four-story brick building in the western “V” formed by 27th Avenue and Astoria Boulevard. The furniture store lasted just a few decades, but this distinctive building with its cupola, now overshadowed by a high rise on the opposite side of Astoria Boulevard, has “nonetheless persisted.” It has been nicely restored within the past decade. It’s called Astoria’s Flatiron Building, but the actual Flatiron Building should be called Manhattan’s L. Gally Building — it preceded it by 12 years.

TUESDAY PHOTO OF THE DAY

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MONDAY PHOTO OF THE DAY

The Walkway over the Hudson at Poughkeepsie
Andy Sparberg and Clara Bella got it right

Text by Judith Berdy
Thanks to Bobbie Slonevsky for her dedication to Blackwell’s Almanac and the RIHS
Thanks to Deborah Dorff for maintaining our website
Edited by Melanie Colter  and Deborah Dorff

FORGOTTEN NEW YORK

GREATER ASTORIA HISTORICAL SOCIETY
BROOKLYN PUBLIC LIBRARY

Text by Judith Berdy
Thanks to Bobbie Slonevsky for her dedication to Blackwell’s Almanac and the RIHS
Thanks to Deborah Dorff for maintaining our website
Edited by Deborah Dorff
All image are copyrighted (c)

All image are copyrighted (c)
Roosevelt Island Historical Society
unless otherwise indicated
PHOTOS BY JUDITH BERDY / RIHS (C)
FUNDING PROVIDED BY ROOSEVELT ISLAND OPERATING CORPORATION PUBLIC PURPOSE GRANTS
CITY COUNCIL REPRESENTATIVE BEN KALLOS DISCRETIONARY FUNDING THRU DYCD

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