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Theme Week New York City – Queens

Wednesday, 23 November 2016 - 11:00 am (CET/MEZ) Berlin | Author/Destination: North America / Nordamerika
Category/Kategorie: General, New York City Reading Time:  8 minutes

🔊 Listen to this Post Queens is the easternmost and largest in area of the five boroughs of New York City. It is geographically adjacent to the borough of Brooklyn at the southwestern end of Long Island, and to Nassau County further east on Long Island; in addition, Queens shares water borders with the boroughs of Manhattan and the Bronx. Coterminous with Queens County since 1899, the borough of Queens is the second-largest in population (after Brooklyn), with a census-estimated 2.3 million residents in 2015, approximately 48% of them foreign-born. Queens is the fourth-most densely populated county among New York City’s boroughs, as well as in the United States. If each New York City borough were an independent city, Queens would also be the nation’s fourth most populous city, after Los Angeles, Chicago, and Brooklyn. Queens was established in 1683, as one of the original 12 counties of New York and was named for the Portuguese Princess Catherine of Braganza (1638–1705), Queen of England, Scotland, and Ireland. It became a borough of New York City in 1898, and from 1683 until 1899, the County of Queens included what is now Nassau County.

Queens has the most diversified economy of the five boroughs of New York City and is home to John F. Kennedy International Airport and LaGuardia Airport. These airports are among the busiest in the world, causing the airspace above Queens to be the most congested in the country. Attractions in Queens include Flushing Meadows Park — whose Citi Field athletic stadium is home to the New York Mets baseball team — and the US Open tennis tournament; as well as Kaufman Astoria Studios, Silvercup Studios, and Aqueduct Racetrack. The borough has diverse housing, ranging from high-rise apartment buildings in the urban areas of western and central Queens, such as Jackson Heights, Flushing, Astoria, and Long Island City, to suburban neighborhoods in the eastern part of the borough such as Little Neck, Douglaston, and Bayside.

Queens is divided into 14 community districts and numerous neighborhoods. The borough is a patchwork of dozens of unique neighborhoods, each with its own distinct identity. Queens is the most ethnically and religiously diversified urban area in the world. A visit to Queens with its 2.3 million inhabitants on 460 km² space is always some kind of world round trip, including the corresponding culinary and retail offers. Residents of Queens often closely identify with their neighborhood rather than with the borough or city:

• Flushing, one of the largest neighborhoods in Queens, has a large and growing Asian community. The community consists of Chinese, Koreans, and South Asians. Asians have now expanded eastward along the Northern Boulevard axis through Murray Hill, Whitestone, Bayside, Douglaston, Little Neck, and eventually into adjacent Nassau County. These neighborhoods historically contained Italian Americans and Greeks, as well as Latino Americans.
• Howard Beach, Whitestone, and Middle Village are home to large Italian American populations.
• Ozone Park and South Ozone Park have large Italian, Hispanic, and Guyanese populations.
• Rockaway Beach has a large Irish American population.
• Astoria, in the northwest, is traditionally home to one of the largest Greek populations outside Greece, it also has large Spanish American and Italian American communities, and is also home to a growing population of Arabs, South Asians, and young professionals from Manhattan. Nearby Long Island City is a major commercial center and the home to Queensbridge, the largest housing project in North America.
• Maspeth and Ridgewood are home to many Eastern European immigrants such as Romanian, Polish, Albanian, and other Slavic populations. Ridgewood also has a large Hispanic population.
• Jackson Heights, Elmhurst, and East Elmhurst make up an conglomeration of Hispanic, Asian, Tibetan, and South Asian communities.
• Woodside is home to a large Filipino American community and has a “Little Manila” as well a large Irish American population. There is also a large presence of Filipino Americans in Queens Village and in Hollis.
• Richmond Hill, in the south, is often thought of as Little Guyana for its large Guyanese community.
• Rego Park, Forest Hills, Kew Gardens, and Kew Gardens Hills have traditionally large Jewish populations (historically from Germany and eastern Europe; though more recent immigrants are from Israel, Iran, and the former Soviet Union). These neighborhoods are also known for large and growing Asian communities, mainly immigrants from China.
• Jamaica Estates, Jamaica Hills, Hillcrest, Fresh Meadows, and Hollis Hills are also populated with many people of Jewish background. Many Asian families reside in parts of Fresh Meadows as well.
• Jamaica is home to large African American and Caribbean populations. There are also middle-class African American and Caribbean neighborhoods such as Saint Albans, Queens Village, Cambria Heights, Springfield Gardens, Rosedale, Laurelton, and Briarwood along east and southeast Queens.
• Bellerose and Floral Park, originally home to many Irish Americans, is home to a growing South Asian population, predominantly Indian Americans from the northern Indian state of Punjab and the southern Indian states of Tamil Nadu and Kerala.
• Corona and Corona Heights, once considered the “Little Italy” of Queens, was a predominantly Italian community with a strong African American community in the northern portion of Corona and adjacent East Elmhurst. From the 1920s through the 1960s, Corona remained a close-knit neighborhood. Corona today has the highest concentration of Latinos of any Queens neighborhood, with an increasing Chinese American population, located between Elmhurst and Flushing.

The named countries are the countries of origin of the immigrants who can usually become US citizens after a few years. They are called e.g. British Americans, Chinese Americans, French Americans, German Americans, Irish Americans, Italian Americans etc. The exception here are citizens of Jewish faith who are collectively referred to as Jewish Americans, regardless of their original nationalities. This is related to the Holocaust, which has only been a genocide when Jews are a people and not “just” a worldwide scattered religious group. This can be seen in this way, but in the overall view it is difficult insofar as then all other religious groups would have to be considered peoples as well, why the discussion on this topic is going on and on.

Here you can find the complete Overview of all Theme Weeks.

Read more on Queens Borough, nycgo.com – Queens, TimeOut.com – Queens, Wikivoyage Queens and Wikipedia Queens (Smart Traveler App by U.S. Department of State - Weather report by weather.com - Global Passport Power Rank - Travel Risk Map - Democracy Index - GDP according to IMF, UN, and World Bank - Global Competitiveness Report - Corruption Perceptions Index - Press Freedom Index - World Justice Project - Rule of Law Index - UN Human Development Index - Global Peace Index - Travel & Tourism Competitiveness Index). Photos by Wikimedia Commons. If you have a suggestion, critique, review or comment to this blog entry, we are looking forward to receive your e-mail at comment@wingsch.net. Please name the headline of the blog post to which your e-mail refers to in the subject line.

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