This group of wood-frame homes, including 11-01 Welling Court at the corner of Main Avenue, its neighbor to the south (at right) and its neighbor to the east (with the two dormers) were demolished between May of 2016 and December of 2017. The buildings at the at the end of the block disappeared long again, and today only the small two-story home mid-block (9-28) remains and considering its run-down condition seems likely to be lost soon as well.

Masonic Temple of Astoria (Advance Masonic Temple), June 2, 1927. The lodge was named for the USS Advance, a 19th century US Navy brigantine used in two Arctic rescue missions in search of the lost Franklin polar expedition. The Advance was abandoned in 1855, icebound, having discovered the Polar Sea.

Wood-frame farmhouse on Welling Court, near Hallett’s Cove. April, 1925. Photographer Eugene L. Armbruster notes “Furman occupied the house many years.” The house appears on the Beers map of 1873, with no owner listed. The house has been significantly altered, with shingled siding replaced by vinyl, but its frame appears intact.

Queens has been developed to be one of New York City’s most diverse borough. Astoria is no different and it is located on the Northwest corner of Queens, New York. Astoria has now become a popular residential area for young professionals due to its fast commute to Manhattan, inexpensive housing and rich nightlife it offers.

Join Adelaide, as she traverses through Queens and discovers its many historical and hidden secrets!

Still standing (2020) it may be an 18th century survivor perhaps built when the area was a large British camp during the American Revolution. A number of adjacent buildings are gone (as of 2018) despite pleas for saving or at least conducting an archaeological assessment. A former tenant in one of the removed buildings, as a child, found a number of early 19th century coins in his yard.

Albert Gallatin House, 1937. The house at the southeast corner of Vernon Boulevard and 30th Road was the 1800- built Albert Gallatin House (also called the General Ebenezer Stevens House, for its original owner, a participant at the Boston Tea Party). Gallatin was the Swiss born American politician, diplomat, and linguist. He was one of the founders of the University of the City of New York, which is now New York University, and he also founded American Ethnological Society. He served as Secretary of the Treasury for 13 years (the longest tenure of a Treasury Secretary in U.S. history). In 1849 he passed away at this home in Astoria at age 88. Fun Fact: His visage was on the U.S $500 bill that was printed in 1862–63. The building seen here was once part of a larger mansion that was split up and moved apart sometime in the 19th century. Like many of the colonial and Victorian homes that survived into the 20th century in Astoria, this home and its wood-frame neighbors were demolished in the 1930s and 1940s as the now sizable population of Astoria was in need of residences and public institutions, and local manufacturing was booming.