78th Street & 37th Avenue, Queens On July 2, 1990, Julio Rivera, a 29-year-old Jackson Heights resident, was attacked by three gang members in the playground of P.S. 69 because of his sexual orientation. He died from his wounds at Elmhurst Hospital, and his death sparked a surge in LGBTQ activism in Queens. While there had been many more hate crimes toward gay people in Queens over the previous few decades, the vigil for Rivera on August 18, 1990, was considered to be Queens’ first successful LGBTQ public demonstration. The vigil, organized by Rivera’s family and friends and a coalition of LGBTQ activists and organizations, led to other advocacy efforts, including the formation of Queens Gays and Lesbians United, the Lesbian and Gay Democratic Club of Queens, Queens Pride House and the organization of two more demonstrations to pressure then-Mayor David Dinkins to publicly acknowledge Rivera’s death. As a result of that advocacy, Rivera’s death became the first gay hate crime to be tried in New York State. Since 1993, this corner has been included on the route of the Queens Pride Parade, and in 2000, a street sign was installed in honor of Julio Rivera. Photo by Christopher D. Brazee/NYC LGBTQ Historic Sites Project.

Jackson Heights Golf Club, 1922. When the Queensboro Corporation began building garden apartment complexes in Jackson Heights in the late 1910s, they included a golf course for their new residents. To attract Manhattanites, the development company, founded by Edward A. MacDougall, offered a "charmed, aristocratic world of golf and tennis clubs, skating rinks and quaint shops." The course was popular in the 1920s, but the land was valuable. In the mid to late 1930s, at the height of the rough years of the Depressions, the developers decided the neighborhood was better served by additional apartments and not the luxury, community spaces like a golf course.

Hampton Court 35–16 to 35–56 79th Street and 35–15 to 35–55 78th Street Designed by George H. Wells 1921 Hampton Court is one of Jackson Heights’ earlier garden-apartment complexes. The 11 buildings occupy almost the entire block and enclose a garden at the center. Additionally, there was a garden at each end of the block originally. These buildings, like many of George H. Wells’s designs, are Neo-Georgian in style and are red brick laid in Flemish bond with white trim. The facades and entries differ between 78th and 79th Streets.

Subway construction in the early 20th century benefitted the rising white middle class as they moved from congested tenement districts to new private houses or apartment buildings in upper Manhattan, the Bronx, Queens, and Brooklyn. This story is adapted from an exhibition at the Skyscraper Museum. The original version can be seen here.

Hawthrone Court 35–13 to 35–55 76th Street and 35–14 to 35–56 77th Street Designed by George H. Wells 1922 Hawthorne Court is an extensive complex made up of 14 five-story buildings set back-to-back. The buildings have red brick façades set in Flemish bond with white stone trim and lintels with keystones. The architect George H. Wells incorporated projecting entrances in the design of these apartments, a hallmark of his work. The entries have short stoops and alternate between Doric column details or flat pilasters with wooden doors surrounded by leaded-glass transoms and sidelights. Each entry is topped with an iron ballustrade.

Elm Court, 1922. A neo-Georgian garden apartment, Elm Court was designed for the Queensboro Corporation by one of their regular architects, George H. Wells. Completed between 1921 and 1922, the complex includes eight four-story buildings and a large landscaped common garden.

The Chateau Apartments were built in 1922 and designed by Andrew Thomas, a local Queens architect. Developed by the Queensboro Corporation, the Chateau consists of 12 U-shaped buildings (six each fronting 80th and 81st Street). The style is a neo-French Renaissance with slate mansard roofing with dormers and brick chimneys with decorative tops. The construction of the building included large areas of gardens in the interior, shared by all of the buildings and front gardens on the street-facing sides. The building has been extremely well preserved. As it nears its centennial, all doors are still original and most of the wood sash and casement windows remain.

View from the garden of The Chateau looking towards Elm Court, ca. 1923.

The Queensboro Corporation was the real estate company responsible for giving the Jackson Heights neighborhood its name. The marshy area had previously been called "Trains Meadow," and, led by Edward A. MacDougall and a group of New York investors, it was developed to become a neighborhood for the middle-class and upper middle-class who were looking to escape the overcrowding of Manhattan. The corporation had purchased about 350 acres of undeveloped land and farms by 1915, and MacDougall erected the infrastructure necessary to maintain a rising middle-class who would soon move in. The Flushing Line reached Trains Meadow, now christened "Jackson Heights," in 1917. The "heights" in the name does not denote any elevation change, but instead was meant to make the area seem exclusive.

The Towers 33–15 to 33–51 80th Street and 33–16 to 33–52 81st Street Designed by Andrew J. Thomas 1924 The Towers are composed of eight freestanding U-shape buildings, four on 80th Street and four on 81st Street. The buildings are placed back-to-back and enclose an interior garden that is accessed by gated entrances located between the buildings. The yellow-brick apartment design is inspired by Italian Romanesque and Renaissance architecture; highlights include red-tile roofs, arcaded sixth-story loggias and tower belvederes.

The Towers, Jackson Heights, 1925. The Towers were built between 1923 and 1925 by the Queensboro Corporation and designed by Andrew J. Thomas. Thomas was a popular architect for the Corporation because he was very successful in minimizing construction costs. He drew inspiration for his designs from Spanish farmhouses and Italian villas. The Towers are built in Neo-Romanesque style, and was one of the first major development projects in Jackson Heights. The rest of the neighborhood sprung up around the building, mimicking its style and design. The complex has a private garden, and statues of stone griffins flanking the gates. There are 114 large apartments inside the building.

The Garden Country Day School (now abbreviated to "Garden School") is an independent school in Queens. It was founded in 1923, and began as a community-led initiative by parents in then-rural Jackson Heights area to provide a superior educational environment for their children. The school was named for the garden-apartment complexes which had been recently constructed by developer Edward A. MacDougall of the Queensboro Corporation. The school began offering only classes for grades K-3, eventually adding grades 4-6 in 1925. It saw its first graduating high school class of three students by 1929. The Garden operated out of the Laburnum Court Apartments at 37-16 80th Street, until headmaster Otis Flower moved the school to its current location at 33-16 79th Street.

The Chateau Apartments 34–05 to 34–47 80th Street and 34–06 to 34–48 81st Street Designed by Andrew J. Thomas 1924 The Chateau apartments are 12 freestanding U-shape buildings placed back-to-back just as The Towers apartments are arranged. These buildings were designed in the French Renaissance style and feature slate mansard roofs with dormer windows and finials, Flemish bond brick facing with diamond patterning, and chimneys with decorative tops.

"Northern Boulevard, at the N. E. corner of 78th Street, showing \[view] of the J. P. Fowler house of 1873. In 1908 Stuart Hirschman was the owner. It was demolished in October 1925. Beyond this house is a new development facing on 79th Street." -Eugene L. Armbruster (photographer) Trains Meadow was the name of a road as well as the area surrounding the road in Northern Queens (from what is now Woodside to Flushing Bay). The road was laid out in 1672 and was the only major thoroughfare in the area until 1900. It was a simple two-lane cart path, lined by family farms. This photograph is the last vestige of this bucolic area as it is about to disappear. By 1915 the Queensboro Corporation had bought most of the nearby land and were beginning to develop Jackson Heights as the garden apartment neighborhood we know today. The Trains Meadow Road disappeared from the map as north/south roads were being developed and the small family farms were demolished to make way for the real estate development.