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1A TOUR OF 'BLACK STUMP ROAD' (73RD AVENUE)

The Brinckerhoff Cemetery

The Brinckerhoff Cemetery prior to cleanup efforts. ^[1]

The Brinckerhoff Cemetery in 2009 ^[2]

Tombstone of Aeltje Brinckerhoff in Brinckerhoff Cemetery (died March 9, 1740)^[3]

On 182nd Street at 73rd Avenue, an abandoned piece of property overrun by trees can be found in between houses. Yet in fact, this tract of land is much more than a shoddily maintained lot waiting to be built on—it’s a cemetery that has 77 plots dating from 1736 to 1872.^[4] Because Fresh Meadows was originally a farm town, one family of early Dutch settlers, the Brinckerhoff’s, established a family cemetery here. After falling “into disrepair” in 1936, the plot’s owners buried all of the tombstones by 1980.^[5] A fight brewed in the Summer of 2008, as the landowner, who was wrongfully sold the land from NYC for $1,025 in 1957 and 1960, filed a petition with a judge to rule the cemetery abandoned and allow building on it, despite state law.^[6]^[7] Meanwhile, Community Board 8 and the Queens Historical Society have been fighting to buy back the property and secure landmark status for the site since 2000, with the ultimate goal of rehabilitating it and making it a memorial park.^[8]

The Fresh Meadows Housing Complex

Fresh Meadows Housing Development Sign ^[9]

Constructing one of the apartment buildings in 1947^[10]

Although the Fresh Meadows housing complex is only 147 acres and takes up less than half the neighborhood of Fresh Meadows, many believe the complex is Fresh Meadows. Built in the late-1940s by the New York Life Insurance Company on the site of what then was the Fresh Meadows Country Club and the Klein family’s 100 acre farm, the complex contains 140 buildings (138 are two or three stories, while two are 13 stories).^[11] A later additional 20-story building was constructed in 1962. When it first opened, the complex featured a bowling alley, nursery school, community center, tennis courts, and beautiful views. In fact, Lewis Mumford, an architectural critic, wrote in The New Yorker in 1949 that the Fresh Meadows development was 'perhaps the most positive and exhilarating example of community planning in the country.”^[12]

Not all was perfect in this beautiful development. Until 1983, it was rented to almost exclusively whites. In that year, the NAACP Legal Defense Fund successfully sued to have the development opened to “a more diverse population.”^[13]

Included in the Fresh Meadows development are the retail spaces currently anchored by Kohls (previously Bloomingdale's and K-Mart) and Filene’s Basement. The development is also known for its strange street numbering, including 64th Circle, 194th Lane, and one stretch of land where 65th Crescent meets 65th Crescent.^[14]

View of the Fresh Meadows Development's 3 story houses ^[15]

3D Rendering of Fresh Meadows Development^[16]

The Klein Farm

The Klein Farm during its years of operation ^[17]

The 'farm' in 2009, as a day care center ^[18]

The final link to Fresh Meadow’s farmland history was the Klein Farm, located on 73rd Avenue on the two acres of land that the Klein family did not sell to the New York Life Insurance Company for the development of the Fresh Meadows housing complex. On this parcel of land, the Klein family operated a small farm and farm stand between April and the day before Thanksgiving, selling many different vegetables; in 1982, the farm had and “average yearly crop of 3,000 tomato plants, 2,000 feet of carrots, 4,000 feet of scallions, a mile of beets, [and] 1,200 feet of squash.' ^[19]^[20]

Sign denoting Farm Playground ^[21]

In late 2001, remaining members of the Klein family decided to sell the no longer profitable piece of land to a developer (Tommy Huang, who previously “destroyed” the RKO-Keith's landmarked movie theater in Flushing) who planned to build 22 two-family houses or an apartment building on the land.^[22]^[23]^[24] The sale of the land for over four million dollars ended the history of private farms in New York City; two institutionalized farms remain in New York City: one at John Bowne High School and one in Staten Island.^[25] However, because the land is part of a special zoning/preservation district, no major alterations can be made without a special permit.^[26] In early 2008, the farm was put up for sale again after attempts to gain this permit to build the housing units failed.^[27] City officials would like to see the land sold to the Queens County Farm Museum to be run as a working farm and visited by school children.^[28] Nevertheless, the former Klein Farm currently operates as a day care center.

Adjacent to the former Klein Farm is “Farm Playground,” renamed as such in 1999 in honor of the Klein Farm. The playground is on a parcel of land donated to the city by the New York Life Insurance Company, which the Klein family sold the land to. The city constructed P.S. 26 on an adjacent plot and made the donated land the school playground, to be maintained equally by the Parks Department and Board of Education. Although a “modern recreational facility,” its name memorializes the colonial past of Fresh Meadow that ended with the sale of the Klein farm in 2004.^[29]

The Long Island Motor Parkway

View of L.I.M.P. in 1939. At the curve is the Fresh Meadow Country Club (site of 1932 US Open),^[30] now home to the Fresh Meadows Housing Development ^[31]

L.I.M.P. overpass in Fresh Meadows, now home to bike and pedestrian path ^[32]

The Long Island Motor Parkway was built as a race course by William Vanderbilt. This was one of the first race courses constructed and attracted car racers from all over the world. The race was originally run in Nassau County, but pedestrian deaths during the 1906 Cup led Vanderbilt to build the Long Island Motor Parkway—a wider road built of reinforced concrete, one of the first concrete roads in the nation. The parkway became a twisty and turn-filled route due to farm owners who wouldn’t sell land, and was the first road in the nation with overpasses,

Damaged concrete guardrail post of the former Long Island Motor Parkway ^[33]

View of the bike/pedestrian path where the L.I.M.P. once ran^[34]

used to avoid intersections with roads already existing.^[35]
In Fresh Meadows, the Long Island Motor Parkway ran through Cunningham Park, and Fresh Meadows serves as the farthest point of the Motor Parkway into Queens. After more deaths in 1910, the race was never held again in Long Island due to a state ban on races not on race tracks.^[36]

Vanderbilt still made a good investment, as he designed the course as a public road as well, with twelve tollbooths along the 43 mile road. It was the highest quality road in the area, and tolls were $2, a high amount in today’s money. In fact, during the 1920s, the Long Island Motor Parkway gained the nickname of Rumrunner’s Road because bootleggers often used it to outrun police.^[37] However, after Robert Moses built superior roads and the Depression hit, Vanderbilt gave the parkway over to New York State in exchange for back taxes, never making any profit on the road. The Long Island Motor Parkway was shut down for good in 1938.^[38] Fresh Meadows is one of the few locations where the parkway still exists today, and it serves as a pedestrian/bicycle path maintained by the Parks Department. Even the Fresh Meadows overpass has been recently rehabilitated for public use!^[39]^[40]