A fascinating part of the melting pot city, current day Jackson
Heights in Queens, New York, the neighborhood formerly known as Trains
Meadow, is shared in images and history of the area from rural farmland
to a cultural and economic center in New York.
At the turn of the 20th century, the neighborhood known as Jackson
Heights was originally called Trains Meadow, a sprawling area covered by
acres of farmland and rolling hills. Its only inhabitants were
homesteaders who lived in their ancient wood-framed dwellings with
spreads occupied by barns, horse stables, cabbage patches, and beehives.
Overgrowing populations in Manhattan and Brooklyn led developers to
Queens County to transform that landscape into Jackson Heights. Headed
by Edward Archibald MacDougall, the ambitious Queensboro Corporation
spent nearly $4 million buying properties, molding roads, and
constructing buildings of great architectural merit. Jackson Heights
provides an in-depth look at the history of America's first garden
apartment community with the use of never-before-seen photographs culled
from local archives and private collections. Images featured show the
neighborhood's progression from rural farmland to the highly populated
economic center it is today with memorable businesses like Jahn's Ice
Cream Parlor and the cultural splendor along Thirty-seventh Avenue and
Eighty-second Street.
