Where in the world can you dine where the residents speak a combined total of 138 languages and there is a melting pot of diverse food options to choose from? You don't have to go any further than Queens, New York. That’s right, Queens also holds the Guinness World Record for the most ethnically diverse urban area on the planet! With just the swipe of your MetroCard, you can make your way around Queens’s diverse neighborhoods with endless food options to choose from. Take in some history, and whether you’re in Astoria, Jackson Heights, Sunnyside, or Flushing, you’ll surely discover a new meal to try.

Vernon Boulevard, west side, at 43rd Road, showing the Bodine Castle, 1932. One of the many unique features of this castle was an underground tunnel from below the home out to the the East River waterfront, which can be seen just right of center. Before it was demolished the land surrounding the castle was used as a lumberyard evidenced in the details of this photograph.

"Located in the once-fashionable Ravenswood area, the Bodine Castle was typical of the modestly-scaled romantic villas that formerly surrounded New York." Constructed sometime in the mid to late 18th century by a supposedly exiled French nobleman, the eclectic building included a large square tower and turret on a large plot of land. Though considered for landmarking in 1966, just one year after the passage of the Landmarks Law, it was denied and was demolished the same year. It was replaced by expanded infrastructure for the Con Ed "Big Aliss" power plant.

The Queensbridge Houses, often called "The Bridge," by various rap and hip hop artists who grew up in the complex, is the largest public housing project in the United States. The complex consists of the North and South Queensbridge Houses, spanning the area between Queensboro Bridge and 41st Avenue from Vernon Boulevard to 21st Street. The Houses are part of the New York City Housing Authority.

At the beginning of 1934, Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia founded the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA). It was a moment of great need in the city, as its poorer residents struggled with a shortage of affordable homes amidst the pressures of the Great Depression. The state had just amended its housing laws of 1924, allowing the establishment of municipal housing authorities. The federal government was also moving to address issues like living standards and affordability, and the 1930s were a time of change and improvement in the availability of safe, sanitary, and economical residences for the poor and working class.

At the beginning of 1934, Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia founded the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA). It was a moment of great need in the city, as its poorer residents struggled with a shortage of affordable homes amidst the pressures of the Great Depression. The state had just amended its housing laws of 1924, allowing the establishment of municipal housing authorities. The federal government was also moving to address issues like living standards and affordability, and the 1930s were a time of change and improvement in the availability of safe, sanitary, and economical residences for the poor and working class. Queensbridge Houses, located in Long Island City in Queens and named for the nearby Queensboro Bridge, opened to residents in 1939. The rent for a 4 1/2 room apartment was $22.75 per month, which is about $390 in today’s dollars. (Today rent is based on a percentage of the tenant’s income and averages around $445.) In order to cut costs, elevators originally stopped only on every other floor. The Y shape of the buildings, however, was unique and was intended to provide light and fresh air to tenants no matter where their apartment was located. There remains ample outdoor space, which is augmented by Queensbridge Park across Vernon Boulevard. Indoor and outdoor community spaces that were part of the original construction remain active today, offering activities for children and seniors. In the 1950s, the racially mixed community at Queensbridge was effectively segregated when the NYCHA moved higher income residents out of the complex, leaving mostly African American and Latino families. The complex experienced an epidemic of crime during the 1980s and 1990s, becoming one of the most dangerous housing projects in the city, but at the same time it fostered the talents of young people who went on to distinguished careers in rap and hip hop, including Nas, Havoc of Mobb Deep, and Marley Marl, to name just a few. Athletes such as basketball players Sean Green and Metta World Peace also grew up in Queensbridge. Frederick Brendan, writing about the project’s musical legacy in XXL Magazine, stated, “\[T]he Bridge has produced the highest per-capita talent of any ’hood.” The complex spans 29 six-story buildings and today houses nearly 7,000 people.

New York City’s leaders pioneered a revolutionary vision of urban living: large-scale, master-planned, high-rise, low-density, apartment communities. The success of these places—with residents, the media, and designers—set the city on a path to density reduction in the decades that followed. This story is adapted from an exhibition at the Skyscraper Museum. The original version can be seen here.

Between 1954 and 1957, the Municipal Art Society surveyed historic buildings in all five boroughs to create a database of potential landmarks to preserve. Local residents and MAS staff compiled individual sheets devoted to about 200 buildings. Each sheet outlined the building’s date, location, and style and provided a description and a small photograph. This is the list of Queens buildings.

Queensbridge Houses, 1939. The Queensbridge Houses are the largest public housing project in the United States, with almost 7,000 residents in 3,142 units. The complex opened in 1939 and is operated by the New York City Housing Authority. The unusual shape of the buildings (two Y's connected at the base) was an attempt to provide more natural light to the residents. The buildings' facilities include basketball courts, a rollerskating rink, and dance classes in studios. The Queensbridge Houses are well-known for their connection to hip hop and rap music. Some of the most influential musicians in the genre have lived in Queensbridge, including Nas, Mobb Deep, and MC Shan.

Bodine Castle With its rather gloomy, forbidding exterior implying Gothic origins, there is almost as much of the Romanesque in this "castle." It may be sensed primarily in the massing of the elements and in the round-arched windows and doors. In its final location, it would have been difficult to visualize the spacious grounds and lawns that must have once surrounded the house.

Crew waterproofing reinforced concrete entrance to the 60th Street Tunnel, October 17, 1917. Plans originally called for the BMT Broadway Line to connect to Queens lines via the Queensboro Bridge, but this plan was scrapped due to uncertainty over the bridge’s ability to support additional train and vehicular traffic. The tunnel opened on August 1, 1920, in an event timed to coincide with the opening of the Montague Street Tunnel; together, the tunnels connected the Manhattan’s BMT Broadway Line to service in Brooklyn and Queens.

Over the years, more than a few New Yorkers have taken the phrase "A man's home is his castle" literally. This tour takes you through a few of the fortifications that New Yorkers have built for themselves.

Who is the Bridge and Tunnel crowd? In more quotidian times, that moniker might call to mind tourists from New Jersey. Currently, the crowd in question might be New Yorkers themselves: Over the past several months, many New Yorkers have sped across these spans on their way out of the city. At the same time, subway-wary city-dwellers have also streamed across New York’s bridges, and through its tunnels, making what would ordinarily be public transit trips by foot, bike or car. Whether you’re in-town or out-of-town, this is a bridge and tunnel moment for New York City. Since the pandemic has redefined our relationship the city’s iconic modes of ingress and egress, let’s take this moment to recognize the bridges and tunnels that carry us in and out of the Upper East Side. Scroll on for a bridge and tunnel history of the neighborhood. Read this story in its original format here.

Queensboro Bridge ca. 1910 Restoration and reuse have saved many Guastavino projects. Originally an open-air market under the Queensboro Bridge, the Bridgemarket served the community from 1914 to 1930. For nearly 60 years thereafter, the space functioned as a storage garage. In 1999, extensive restoration returned the area to public use as a market and popular event space named in honor of the Guastavinos.

The Queensboro Bridge, viewed from Sutton Square, ca. 1930. When the Queensboro— originally named the Blackwell's Island Bridge for the island close to the Queens side of the East River— was built, the area around the Queens approach was still sparsely settled. Large portions of land in the vicinity were owned by a few wealthy families and the remainder of the borough was home to truck farms, cemeteries, and race tracks. Following the consolidation of Greater New York in 1898, consolidationist politicians sought to accelerate the development of industry and housing in Queens; completion of a bridge connecting Queens to Manhattan was essential to these ambitions. Engineer Gustav Lindenthal, who was also chief engineer for the Hell Gate Bridge, collaborated extensively with architect Henry Hornbostel to conceive a bridge both functional and architecturally appealing. Hornbostel and Lindenthal used symmetry and repetition, towers capped with spires, and falsework support in an effort to compensate for the bridge's massiveness and relative lack of decorative ornamentation. The finished structure has been described as a cantilever bridge wit suspensions bridge lines. When the Quebec Bridge, a contemporary cantilever project planned as the longest cantilever in the world, collapse in 1907, apprehensive City officials ordered exhaustive tests of Lindenthal and Hornbostel's design. Administrative misgivings led also to concern about the quality of materials, which were subjected to exhaustive reinspection.