Place:Flushing, Queens, New York, United States

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NameFlushing
TypeNeighborhood
Located inQueens, New York, United States
source: Family History Library Catalog


the text in this section is copied from an article in Wikipedia

Flushing is a neighborhood in the north-central portion of the New York City borough of Queens. The neighborhood is the fourth-largest central business district in New York City. Downtown Flushing, a major commercial and retail area centered on the intersection of Main Street and Roosevelt Avenue, is the third-busiest intersection in New York City, behind Times Square and Herald Square.

Flushing was established as a settlement of New Netherland on October 10, 1645, on the eastern bank of Flushing Creek. It was named Vlissingen, after the Dutch city of Vlissingen. The English took control of New Amsterdam in 1664, and when Queens County was established in 1683, the "Town of Flushing" was one of the original five towns of Queens. In 1898, Flushing was consolidated into the City of New York. Development came in the early 20th century with the construction of bridges and public transportation. An immigrant population, composed mostly of Chinese and Koreans, settled in Flushing in the late 20th century.

Flushing contains numerous residential subsections, and its diversity is reflected by the numerous ethnic groups that reside there. Flushing is served by several stations on the Long Island Rail Road's Port Washington Branch, as well as the New York City Subway's IRT Flushing Line, which has its terminus at Main Street.

Flushing is located in Queens Community District 7, and its ZIP Codes are 11354, 11355, and 11358.[1] It is patrolled by the New York City Police Department's 109th Precinct.

Contents

History

the text in this section is copied from an article in Wikipedia

Precolonial and colonial history

Flushing was originally inhabited by the Matinecoc Indians prior to colonization and European settlement.

Dutch colony

On October 10, 1645, Flushing was established on the eastern bank of Flushing Creek under charter of the Dutch West India Company and was part of the New Netherland colony that was governed from New Amsterdam (Lower Manhattan). The settlement was named Vlissingen, after the city of Vlissingen, which was the European base of the Dutch West India company. By 1657, the residents called the place "Vlishing." Eventually, the formal traditional English name for the Dutch town, "Flushing", would be settled upon (despite being a Dutch colony, many of the local early settlers were British, who trickled down from nearby Connecticut colony).

Unlike all other towns in the region, the charter of Flushing allowed residents freedom of religion as practiced in Holland "without the disturbance of any magistrate or ecclesiastical minister." However, in 1656, New Amsterdam Director-General Peter Stuyvesant issued an edict prohibiting the harboring of Quakers. On December 27, 1657, the inhabitants of Flushing approved a protest known as The Flushing Remonstrance. This petition contained religious arguments even mentioning freedom for "Jews, Turks, and Egyptians," but ended with a forceful declaration that any infringement of the town charter would not be tolerated. Subsequently, a farmer named John Bowne held Quaker meetings in his home and was arrested for this and deported to Holland. Eventually he persuaded the Dutch West India Company to allow Quakers and others to worship freely. As such, Flushing is claimed to be a birthplace of religious freedom in the New World. Landmarks remaining from the Dutch period in Flushing include the John Bowne House on Bowne Street and the Old Quaker Meeting House on Northern Boulevard. The Remonstrance was signed at a house on the site of the former State Armory, now a police facility, on the south side Northern Boulevard between Linden Place and Union Street.

English colony

In 1664, the English took control of New Amsterdam, ending Dutch control of the New Netherland colony, and renamed it the Province of New York. When Queens County was established in 1683, the "Town of Flushing" was one of the original five towns which comprised the county. Many historical references to Flushing are to this town, bounded from Newtown on the west by Flushing Creek (now Flushing River), from Jamaica on the south by the watershed, and from Hempstead on the east by what later became the Nassau County line. The town was dissolved in 1898 when Queens became a borough of New York City, and the term "Flushing" today usually refers to a much smaller area, for example the former Village of Flushing.


Flushing was a seat of power as the Province of New York up to the American Revolution was led by Governor Cadwallader Colden, based at his Spring Hill estate.

Flushing was the site of the first commercial tree nurseries in North America, the most prominent being the Prince, Bloodgood, and Parsons nurseries. A tract of Parsons's exotic specimens was preserved on the north side of Kissena Park. The nurseries are also commemorated in the names of west–east avenues that intersect Kissena Boulevard; the streets are named after plants and ordered alphabetically from Ash Avenue in the north to Rose Avenue in the south. Flushing also supplied trees to the Greensward Project, now known as Central Park in Manhattan. Well into the 20th century, Flushing contained many horticultural establishments and greenhouses.

During the American Revolution, Flushing, along with most settlements in present-day Queens County, favored the British and quartered British troops, though one battalion of Scottish Highlanders is known to have been stationed at Flushing during the war. Following the Battle of Long Island, Nathan Hale, an officer in the Continental Army, was apprehended near Flushing Bay while on what was probably an intelligence gathering mission and was later hanged.


The 1785 Kingsland Homestead, originally the residence of a wealthy Quaker merchant, now serves as the home of the Queens Historical Society.

19th century

During the 19th century, as New York City continued to grow in population and economic vitality, so did Flushing. Its proximity to Manhattan was critical in its transformation into a fashionable residential area. On April 15, 1837, the Village of Flushing was incorporated within the Town of Flushing.[2] The official seal was merely the words, "Village of Flushing", surrounded by nondescript flowers. No other emblem or flag is known to have been used. The Village of Flushing included the neighborhoods of Flushing Highlands, Bowne Park, Murray Hill, Ingleside, and Flushing Park.[3]

The Flushing and North Side Railroad opened its Port Washington Branch to Flushing in 1854, providing access to Hunters Point on the East River shore. By the mid-1860s, Queens County had 30,429 residents. The Village of College Point was incorporated in 1867, and the Village of Whitestone was incorporated in 1868. The first free public high school in what is now New York City was established in Flushing in 1875. Flushing, then a small village, established a library in 1858, the oldest in Queens County and only slightly younger than the library of the City of Brooklyn (built in 1852).

In 1898, although opposed to the proposal, the Town of Flushing (along with two other towns and other land of Queens County) was consolidated into the City of New York to form the new Borough of Queens. All towns, villages, and cities within the new borough were dissolved.

Local farmland continued to be subdivided and developed transforming Flushing into a densely populated neighborhood of New York City. A major factor in this was the Halleran real estate agency. From the American Civil War to the end of the 1930s its slogan “Ask Mr. Halleran!” could be seen in ads all over Long Island, and the phrase from its maps “So This Is Flushing” became a catchphrase.

20th-century development

The continued construction of bridges over the Flushing River and the development of other roads increased the volume of vehicular traffic into Flushing. In 1909, the Queensboro Bridge over the East River opened, connecting Queens County to midtown Manhattan. With the opening of Pennsylvania Station the next year, the Port Washington Branch, now part of the Long Island Rail Road, started running to midtown Manhattan. Broadway, a main roadway through Flushing, was widened and renamed Northern Boulevard. The Roosevelt Avenue Bridge over the Flushing River, which carries four lanes of traffic and the New York City Subway's elevated Flushing Line, was the largest trunnion bascule bridge in the world when it was completed in 1927. The next year, the Main Street terminal of the Flushing subway line opened in downtown Flushing, giving the neighborhood direct subway access.

Flushing was a forerunner of Hollywood, when the young American film industry was still based on the U.S. East Coast and Chicago. Decades later, the RKO Keith's movie palace would host vaudeville acts and appearances by the likes of Mickey Rooney, the Marx Brothers and Bob Hope.



Asian communities

In the 1970s, immigrants from Taiwan established a foothold in Flushing, whose demographic constituency had been predominantly non-Hispanic white, interspersed with a small Japanese community. Additionally, a large South Korean population also called Flushing home. The Taiwanese immigrants were the first wave of Chinese-speaking immigrants who spoke Mandarin (Taiwanese also spoken) rather than Cantonese to arrive in New York City. Many Taiwanese immigrants were additionally Hokkien and had relatives or connections to Fujian province in China, which led to large influxes of Fuzhounese Americans.

Over the years, many new non-Cantonese ethnic Chinese immigrants from different regions and provinces of China started to arrive in New York City and settled in Flushing through word of mouth. This wave of immigrants spoke Mandarin and various regional/provincial dialects. The early 1990s and 2000s brought a wave of Fuzhounese Americans and Wenzhounese immigrants, who mostly spoke Mandarin, and who settled in Flushing as well as Elmhurst. Flushing's Chinese population became diverse over the next few decades as people from different provinces started to arrive. Due to loosened emigration restrictions in mainland China, there has been a growing Northern Chinese population in Flushing. The regional food cuisines have led to Flushing being considered the "food mecca" for Chinese regional cuisine outside of Asia.

21st-century transformation

In the 21st century, Flushing has cemented its status as an international "melting pot", predominantly attracting immigrants from Asia, particularly from throughout the various provinces of China, but including newcomers from all over the world. Flushing Chinatown is centered around Main Street and the area to its west, most prominently along Roosevelt Avenue, which have become the primary nexus of Flushing Chinatown. However, Chinatown continues to expand southeastward along Kissena Boulevard and northward beyond Northern Boulevard. The Flushing Chinatown houses over 30,000 individuals born in China alone, the largest Chinatown by this metric outside Asia and one of the largest and fastest-growing Chinatowns in the world. In January 2019, the New York Post named Flushing as New York City's "most dynamic outer-borough neighborhood." Flushing is undergoing rapid gentrification by Chinese transnational entities.

Streetscape

Research Tips

External Links

  • Outstanding guide to Flushing family history and genealogy resources (FamilySearch Research Wiki). Birth, marriage, and death records, town histories, cemeteries, churches, newspapers, libraries, and genealogical societies.


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