Sunnyside in Queens, between the Sunnyside Rail Yard and the LIE/BQE interchange, is bisected by Queens Boulevard, with the great, curving vaults of the elevated train tracks running above. To the south, the buildings are a mix of five- and six-story co-ops and freestanding homes, while the north is dominated by the historic district of Sunnyside Gardens, a leafy enclave of red-brick Colonial Revival homes and apartment buildings.

The neighborhood's eastern border is made up of Woodside and Calvary Cemetery, while its western border is (by most accounts) 39th Street. Not to be confused with 39th Place, which, in true Queens fashion, runs one block parallel.

The neighborhood got its name from the Broucard family, French Huguenots who arrived in the U.S. in 1675 aboard the Gilded Otter. Bourgon Broucard initially settled in Bushwick, but, perhaps growing weary of all the bespoke cooperages and farm-to-table johnnycake pop-ups, he bought a large estate in what is now Sunnyside from the fantastically named Burger Jorizz. In 1713, Broucard, or one of his sons, named their estate "Sunnyside Hill."

One of the homes that Bourgon built stood for over 200 years before it was finally torn down around 1900. By then the farmland was giving way to the city: the Queensboro Bridge was completed in 1909, and the IRT Flushing Line, connecting Queens with Manhattan, was finished by 1915.