Queens/Jackson Heights

Jackson Heights is a neighborhood in Queens, a borough of New York City. Woodside, Elmhurst and Corona are also covered in this article. To an increasing number of travelers and curious New York natives, the area offers a diversity of mostly reasonably-priced restaurants representing many of the world's cuisines, including Indian, Thai, Korean, Mexican, Peruvian, Italian, and Argentine.

Understand
Jackson Heights was built as a planned community in the years between the World Wars. Today it is a multi-ethnic community of well-maintained apartment buildings and single-family houses.

The original tract of land that became Jackson Heights extended approximately from Roosevelt Avenue on the south to Northern Boulevard on the north, and from the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway/69th Street on the west to Junction Boulevard on the east, an area of about a square mile. These are still the boundaries recognized by many residents, although sometimes the larger, low-rise area stretching north of Northern Blvd. to LaGuardia Airport is also considered part of Jackson Heights.

South Asian businesses cluster around the block of 74th Street between Roosevelt Ave. and 37th Ave. Restaurants and other businesses catering to the growing Mexican community cluster on Roosevelt Ave., which runs under the elevated #7 Flushing Line of the New York subway. 37th Avenue has many local shops. 82nd Street and Junction Boulevard are mostly discount shopping streets with a Latin flavor. Most of the other streets are primarily residential.

Adjoining areas
Abutting Jackson Heights to the south, across Roosevelt Ave., is Elmhurst, a very ethnically diverse neighborhood that supports Latino, Chinese, Korean, and South Asian communities. But perhaps above all, Southeast Asians - from the Philippines, Malaysia, Vietnam, and Thailand - are a striking presence among the purveyors and clientele of its various shops and restaurants. Only about a 35-minute subway ride from Manhattan and a short walk from all the Indian and Latino clubs, shops, and restaurants in Jackson Heights, it is a neighborhood very much worth visiting for some excellent, inexpensive food. Very good restaurants such as the Georgia Diner are also in the district, as well as the Queens Center Mall. Get here by taking the R or M trains to Elmhurst Avenue or Grand Avenue.

Corona borders Jackson Heights to the east, across Junction Boulevard. It is a largely Latino neighborhood with many Latino restaurants. Corona also has a rich African American heritage, and is the former home of Louis Armstrong, the great jazz musician whose house is now a museum, and Willie Mays, the Hall of Fame centerfielder for the New York and San Francisco Giants and the New York Mets. Get there by taking the 7 train to Junction Boulevard or 103rd Street, or the R or M trains to Woodhaven Boulevard or 63rd Drive.

Woodside connects to the west side of Jackson Heights. Woodside is both a residential and commercial neighborhood with a good food diversity. While you are in Woodside if you like Filipino groceries you can visit Phil-am Food Mart. There's also the Tower Square Shopping Center where you can find a little bit of everything.

By subway
The area is easily reached by subway from midtown Manhattan (in as little as 15 minutes, via the or ) and other parts of New York City. The busiest station is known as 74th Street on the, and as Jackson Heights/Roosevelt Ave. on the , , , and trains. A free transfer is provided there between the lines, and there are also free transfers to the various bus lines that serve Jackson Heights, including the Q49, Q32, and Q33. Further east along Roosevelt Ave., the area is also served by the 82nd St., 90th St., and Junction Blvd. stations of the train.

By car
Jackson Heights can be reached from the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway (or "BQE", also known as I-278), via the Roosevelt Ave. or Northern Blvd. exits. This road connects to the RFK (formerly Triborough) Bridge and to Brooklyn. Northern Blvd. leads west to the Queensborough Bridge and east to the Grand Central Parkway, the Van Wyck Expressway, and Flushing.

From LaGuardia Airport
From LaGuardia Airport you can take the bus from Terminal B and stop at Time Square-42 St. After that, take the bus at Time Square-42 St and reach the Boston Road @ Pelham Parkway. Finally, take the bus at Boston Road @ Pelham Parkway and reach Woodside.

The second stop to use the bus at LaGuardia Airport is at Ditmars Bl/102 St. Take the bus and reach at Roosevelt Av/Main St. Finally, take the bus at Roosevelt Av/Main St and reach Woodside Queens.

From JFK Airport
There is a bus at Terminal 5 you can take to reach the Kew Gardens Road. Then take the Q60 Bus from Queens Bl/Union Tpk and reach Queens Bl/63 St. Finally, walk towards Woodside Queens.

From Terminal 4, you can take the AirTrain to reach Jamaica station. Then take the Long Island Rail Road to Woodside Queens.

See
Much of Jackson Heights is designated by the city as a landmark district, which provides a measure of protection to the area's distinctive architecture. Though many of the buildings are distinctive, the area is primarily known for its gardens. Some of these are visible from the street, but others are in enclosed courtyards, and they are mostly private spaces that can only be visited by invitation or during the annual "open house" day (see the website of the Jackson Heights Beautification Group for details). Architecturally notable apartment complexes with extensive gardens include the Towers and the Chateau, which face each other across 34th Avenue between 80th and 81st streets, and Dunolly Gardens, on the block bounded by 78th and 79th streets and 34th and 35th avenues.

The single block of 74th Street between Roosevelt and 37th Avenue is the nucleus of a bustling South Asian shopping district, with stores selling traditional garments (such as saris), gold jewelry (especially for use in wedding ceremonies), Bollywood DVDs, religious goods, and of course, food. The community has diversified somewhat, as Indian and Pakistani immigrants have been joined by people from Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan, Tibet, and other countries. 73rd Street is home to several Bengali businesses.



Woodside

 * 9/11 Mural You won’t find any big museums or exhibits in Woodside, but you will find the occasional vibrant mural. The major one to check out is the 9/11 mural commissioned by Woodside on the Move, a grassroots organization dedicated to “making Woodside and Western Queens a better place to live and learn.” Spanning the wall on 61st street under the subway station on Roosevelt Avenue, it was painted in 2011 to commemorate the 10th anniversary of 9/11 and its victims.


 * Tower square shopping center The trolley barn was built in 1896 for the New York and Queens Railroad Company. Now there is a Pizza Hut, where you can eat and see this historical side of Woodside Ave.

Within Woodside, the double-decker station of the Long Island Rail Road (built in 1869) and the IRT Flushing Line (built in 1917) both remain, and were renovated in 1999. A trolley barn at Northern Boulevard and 51st Street has been preserved as the Tower Square Shopping Center. The New York and Queens Railroad Company built the barn in 1896. A transportation hub like the LIRR/IRT stations, it was the largest car barn in Queens.

Woodside also possesses an ancient tree, a large copper beech of somewhere between 150 and 300 years old. Documents in the archive of the Queens Historical Society suggest that it might have been planted during the time of the Revolutionary War.

Among the oldest of Woodside's historic landmarks are its cemeteries. Calvary Cemetery was founded in 1845 by trustees of Manhattan's St. Patrick's Cathedral for Roman Catholic burials and was later expanded by the addition of three sections comprising New Calvary. Calvary and New Calvary's combined 300 acres (120 ha) contain over three million burials. The Moore-Jackson Cemetery on 54th Street between 31st & 32nd Avenues is much older and smaller than Calvary. Established in 1733, it is one of the oldest cemeteries in New York. Only fifteen graves remain visible, the earliest dated 1769.


 * The Bulova Corporation has its headquarters in northern Woodside along Interstate 278. The headquarters opened in 1875.
 * The Queens Public Library's Woodside branch is located at 54-22 Skillman Avenue.

Parks and recreation
Parks in the area include:


 * Doughboy Plaza, bounded by Woodside Avenue, 52nd Street, and 39th Road. It used to be a children's playground but is now a landscaped triangle.
 * Windmuller Park (now Lawrence Virgilio Playground), between 39th Road and 39th Drive from 52nd to 54th Streets. It was first named after Louis Windmuller, a local resident who was a German immigrant and a businessman. In 2002 the park was renamed after Lawrence Virgilio, a firefighter who died in the September 11 attacks. The park's facilities include fields and courts for baseball and handball; a playground and spray shower; a running track; a swimming pool; and fitness equipment.
 * Big Bush Park, north side of Laurel Hill Boulevard between 61st and 64th Streets. It was built on a plot of land created during the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway's construction in the 1950s and opened in 1987, sixteen years after construction started. The park's facilities include fields and courts for baseball, basketball, handball, and soccer; a playground and spray shower; and fitness equipment.
 * Nathan Weidenbaum Playground, south side of Laurel Hill Boulevard at 61st Street. It was named after a local resident who was one of the first occupants of the Wynwoode Gardens Homes and advocated for improvements to the area.

Buy

 * Little India: There are traditional Indian shops and along 73rd and 74th street; Patel Brothers supermarket on 74th street carries a large variety of traditional Indian food and products.