Spring has definitely sprung and I thought it would be a good time to document the beautiful neighborhood of Forest Hills Gardens in the Forest Hills section of Queens, NY. This is a private neighborhood packed with unique, amazing houses and beautiful landscaping as well. There’s a community architectural committee that homeowners have to consult with when doing any exterior renovations, since the aim is to keep the old world charm and historical character value. It’s definitely working, because every detail is maintained in this cool enclave of homes. Old unique iron street lamps and street signs, brick archways on the east side of the neighborhood, winding narrow streets, a few hidden walkways and a few mini parks to relax in. But what really catches your attention is the variety of styles in the houses themselves. All totally unique and interesting. This being a private neighborhood, there’s hardly any traffic and very few parked cars, since it’s limited to the residents. So that adds to the serenity and peaceful vibe.
A brief history: The development of adjacent Forest Park, a park on the southern end of Forest Hills, began in 1895. Starting in 1896, the landscape architecture firm of Olmsted, Olmsted & Eliot was contracted to provide a plan for the park.[4]: 469
In 1906, the Cord Meyer Development Company, headed by Brooklyn attorney Cord Meyer, bought abutting land made up of six farms (those of Ascan Bakus, Casper Joost-Springsteen, Horatio N. Squire, Abram V. S. Lott, Sarah V. Bolmer, and James Van Siclen). The company then renamed the aggregate 600 acres (240 ha) "Forest Hills", after Forest Park. Single-family homes, designed by architects such as Robert Tappan and William Patterson, were constructed on these 600 acres.[4]: 469 The roads of Forest Hills were laid out by 1910.[4]: 470 The present-day Ascan Avenue in Forest Hills is named after Ascan Bakus.
Margaret Sage, the founder of the Russell Sage Foundation, bought 142 acres of land from the Cord Meyer Development Company in 1908. This land was to be used for "Forest Hills Gardens", a development on the southern side of Forest Hills. Grosvenor Atterbury, a renowned architect, was given the commission to design Forest Hills Gardens. The neighborhood was planned on the model of the garden communities of England, with its own inn, garage, and post office. It also included narrow, winding roads to limit through traffic. As a result, there are many Tudor-style homes in Forest Hills. The more sprawling ones are located in Forest Hills Gardens, but most are located in the section loosely bounded by 68th Avenue on the north; 72nd Road on the south; 108th Street on the west; and Grand Central Parkway on the east. The construction of this area used a prefabricated building technique. Each house was built from approximately 170 standardized precast concrete panels, fabricated off-site and positioned by crane. The houses were mostly constructed between 1910 and 1917.
The Long Island Rail Road opened a station in Forest Hills in 1911 and the Queens Boulevard trolley line opened two years later. The LIRR station was built with a brick courtyard, a clock tower, and arch-filled underpasses, fitting in with the Forest Hills Gardens section of the neighborhood. Since the railroad and trolley both connected to Manhattan, the presence of these two transportation options spurred development in Forest Hills. You can see Station Square and more in my Forest Hills Part 2 video.
Forest Hills is bigger than the area I covered here, but to me it’s the most visually interesting vicinity. Walking further west towards the LIRR train station and Forest Hills Stadium is very nice to see also, but I stayed in the main Gardens part, which is surrounded on the north by the LIRR tracks (Queens Boulevard a few blocks over from that) on the east by Union Turnpike (Jackie Robinson Parkway next to that) on the west by Ascan Avenue and on the south by Kessel Street.
This was one of the first planned communities in the United States and I’m glad that they kept the original look and feel intact just the way it looked when development started out back in 1909. A true hidden gem of a neighborhood and one of the nicest in all of NYC!
** I APOLOGIZE FOR THE RANDOM STATIC IN THE AUDIO. NOT SURE IF ITS MY CAMERA SETTINGS, A DEFECT OR A RU-vid THING. IT NEVER DID IT IN THE PAST. I’M WORKING ON FIXING THE ISSUE. **
7 май 2023
