Brief History of Flushing Meadows-Corona Park Queens
One of the most interesting NYC hidden gems is Flushing Meadows-Corona Park, Queens. It’s interesting to call Flushing Meadows-Corona Park a hidden-gem, because it is a neighborhood that’s hosted two world’s fairs and, as a result, is home to one of NYC’s most recognizable landmarks – the Unisphere. Flushing Meadows-Corona Park also hosts major events such as the U.S. Open and is home to CitiFields, where the New York Mets play. Despite these accolades, very few visitors to NYC make the journey to explore Flushing Meadows-Corona Park, and even fewer know the neighborhoods origins. Let’s explore!
How did Flushing Queens Get its Name?
For English speakers, Flushing is a pretty funny name, and despite the fact it makes many people think of a toilet, it has nothing to do with that type of flushing. You probably know that before New York was New York it was a Dutch trading colony called New Netherlands, or New Amsterdam. This area was a settlement called Vlissingen, named for a city in the Southwestern Netherlands. Locals here shortened it to “Vlissing,” which morphed to Flushing when the English took over.
How did Corona Park Queen get its name?
How did Corona Park Queens get its name? Well, the truth is no one knows. History has many mysteries, and the truth of how Flushing Meadows Corona Park got its name is one. There are many theories about why West Flushing was renamed Corona Here are three of them:
- According to the NYC.gov website, Corona Park got its name when a real estate developer Thomas Waite Howard came along. He would eventually become postmaster of the neighborhood and suggested the name CORONA because he considered the area to be the crown of Queens County.
- Others say we owe the name Corona to the Crown Building Company, who built residences in this area occupied by Italian Immigrants. Crown, in Italian, is Corona.
- The name is owed to a Music publisher turned developer Benjamin W. Hitchock. In 1867 he bought 1200 parcels of land here and by 1872, residents wanted a name change to distinguish it from Flushing and express pride in their community. They took the Latin name for “crown.” This was of course Corona, to say they were the crown of all neighborhoods in Long Island.
ASH DUMP
Did you know that Flushing Meadows, Queens Used to be an Ash Dump? In the mid 1800s, developers built residences in Flushing, largely occupied by Italian immigrants. They had their homes here when New York City decided to dump the ash from all the stoves throughout the city in this area. In the Great Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald, the area was described as “The Valley of the Ashes.”
One can imagine that the residents in Flushing were less than thrilled to live among the ashes. It was considered a blight on the neighborhood they once considered the “crown” of the county.
Why Was the 1939 World’s Fair Held in Queens
“The Valley of the Ashes” is a strange backdrop to host a World’s Fair, but there were a few factors at play. First of all there was an important anniversary coming up, the 150th anniversary of George Washington taking his oath of office to become the very first president of the constitutional United States. Washington took his oath of office on Wall Street, so it seemed appropriate to have a world’s fair in New York. But why Queens?
Flushing Meadows was large and the city already owned 586 acres of it! Sure, some residents and businesses had to be evicted to make way for the World’s Fair, but that didn’t seem to bother urban planner Robert Moses at all. Moses even quoted the prophet Isaiah, “Give unto them beauty for Ashes,” and thus The World’s Fair came to Flushing.
There are plenty of photo opportunities in Flushing Meadows-Corona Park, including in front of the world-famous Unisphere. Take a photo and put it on our giant Times Square billboard! Your photo can show for as low as $150 a day!