#InTheLoop | Check Out Queens By Candlelight – QEDC

#InTheLoop | Check Out Queens By Candlelight

BY QEDC It's In Queens

History is alive and well at an enchanting Queens spot that has city, federal, and state landmark status.

The Onderdonk House will open its doors for Candlelight Tours from 6 pm to 8 pm on three Saturdays: Jan. 15; Feb. 12; and March 12.

Via a guided tour of three floors of exhibits, visitors will experience how people lived before running water, electricity, and even Instagram. (Yikes!) If the weather collaborates, they’ll be able to walk around the former farm and check out Arbitration Rock (below).

Admission is $10, but children under age 12 can attend for free.

Located at 1820 Flushing Ave. in Ridgewood, Onderdonk is the oldest Dutch colonial stone house in New York City. In 1661, Hendrick Barents Smidt built the original structure, which Paulus Vander-Ende enlarged in 1709. A smaller wooden wing was added in the early 1800s, when the Onderdonk family purchased the property. Features include heavy fieldstone walls, a wooden-shingle gambrel roof, brick chimneys, Double Dutch doors, and shuttered windows. An original fireplace and kitchen are in the cellar.

Advance registration is required as there will be timed entry due to Covid safety concerns.

Editor’s note: Protected by a white picket fence and about the size of a Volkswagon Beetle, Arbitration Rock is on display in Onderdonk’s yard. Peter Marschalk allegedly used the stone to delineate the border between what is now Brooklyn and Queens in 1769. (It was the towns of Bushwick and Newtown back then.)