A Trip Around the World Without Leaving Queens
First-time New York visitors Justine Sharman and Ian Johnson were matched with the perfect volunteer for their requested “off the beaten path” Greet. Jeff Riback was delighted to take the couple to see the Queens neighborhoods where he grew up.
Jeff made an immediate connection with Ian and Justine when he met them at their Midtown Manhattan hotel on a beautiful day in early September. Jeff and his wife visited Australia in January and spent several days in Melbourne. Justine and Ian live about an hour outside the city. After exchanging notes on their favorite things to do in Victoria, it was off to the subway for the ride to Elmhurst, the working class Queens neighborhood where Jeff was born.
Traveling along the “International Express" – the 7 line.
Ian’s first words after emerging onto Queens Boulevard from the R train’s Grand Avenue station were, “It’s a different world!” The broad avenue and low-rise buildings belie the popular image of New York City, but are not unusual in Queens. Close to two and a half million people live in the borough—the largest of NYC’s five boroughs geographically and second most populous, just behind Brooklyn.
Even for New York, Queens is extraordinarily diverse with nearly half of its residents having been born outside the US. Jeff’s Elmhurst neighborhood was originally settled by Dutch and English immigrants in the 17th and 18th Centuries. Since then, successive waves of immigration have brought large numbers of Irish, Italian, and eastern European Jews to the area. Today, Elmhurst’s residents are mostly of Hispanic or Asian heritage, including large numbers of immigrants from South and Central America and China.
On their walk through narrow streets crowded with vendors selling food, toys, and clothing, Jeff showed Justine and Ian how the neighborhood has changed by pointing out buildings related to each group that has called Elmhurst home. Many of the changes are reflected in religious institutions, and sometimes the changes are captured in one building. For example, the Reformed Church of Newton, a landmarked wooden structure on Broadway that was built in 1832, is on the site of the original church, completed a century earlier. Services were originally conducted in Dutch, then English. Today there are Sunday services in Mandarin, Taiwanese, and English.
Some of the changes were more personal to Jeff’s family history. Further along Broadway, the group visited the block where Jeff’s maternal grandfather owned the Elmhurst 5*10*25 ¢ Dept Store, colloquially known as Bokser’s, the family’s surname. Jeff’s grandparents lived in the apartment directly above the store, and he grew up in the apartment above them. Jeff’s dad bought the business in the mid-1960s. The family home later became a Buddhist meditation center and is now a construction site—a typical New York story and another in the long line of neighborhood transitions.
Walking north from Elmhurst, the group reached Jackson Heights, which the New York Times has called “the most culturally diverse neighborhood in New York, if not on the planet.” Jackson Heights was largely marsh and farmland until the early decades of the 20th Century when it started to become a popular residential area for people with the resources and desire to escape crowded Manhattan neighborhoods. The Jackson Heights historic district showcases the first and largest cooperative and garden apartment community in the US. Homes include brick structures ranging from single-family houses to large apartment buildings with landscaped interior courtyards. The quiet, tree-lined streets offer a respite from the bustle of the city and have become very popular with young families looking for more living space and a quieter lifestyle.
Since the 1930s, Jackson Heights has welcomed the LGBTQ community—the largest in New York outside Manhattan. The 1940s saw large numbers of Jews move to the neighborhood, while the 1950s and 1960s brought increasing numbers of immigrants from South America, particularly Colombia, and South Asia. “Welcome to India,” Jeff said, as he led Ian and Justine down 74th Street, past sari shops and Indian restaurants to the large Patel Brothers grocery store, which carries food and other products from India.
After marveling at the items on offer in the store, Ian, Justine, and Jeff caught the 7 train for the return trip to Midtown. Nicknamed the “International Express,” the 7 line runs largely above ground in Queens, traveling through a number of immigrant neighborhoods and offering views of the Manhattan skyline. It had been a long and tiring walk, but a special experience to “travel” from Central and South America to South and East Asia—all without leaving Queens.