#PickoftheWeek | Stay Home and Tour Elmhurst with a Professional Guide
BY QEDC It's In Queens
Like most of Queens, Elmhurst’s history includes Dutch and British farmers, rapid urbanization after the establishment of train stations, and unique tales of city planning – or lack of planning.
Learn more about this bustling, multi-ethnic neighborhood when professional guide Adrienne Onofri leads a virtual tour through the streets on Sunday, Oct. 4, at 2:30 pm.
It’s free via zoom, but there’s a 50-person maximum and registration is on a first-come-first-serve.
Onofri is a long-time borough resident who has been leading tours for more than 10 years. She’s also the author of “Walking Queens: 30 Tours for Discovering the Diverse Communities; Historic Places; and Natural Treasures of New York City’s Largest Borough,” a DIY guide that strollers can use to explore at their own pace.
During Sunday’s virtual tour, Onofri will do the walking while streaming and discussing Elmhurst’s interesting sights, sounds, and stories.
The area’s first European residents were immigrants from Holland who established the village of Middlenburgh in 1652. It was an outlying part of Dutch-ruled New Amsterdam then. After the British took control of the area in 1664, it became New Town and then Newtown. The name “Elmhurst” came as Queens was incorporating into the City of New York in the late 1890s.
The area was known for the Newtown Pippin, a popular apple that Benjamin Franklin and President Thomas Jefferson loved, in the 1700s. During the 1800s, it was a hub for Free Blacks, who constructed an African-American church and cemetery. In the early 1900s, many Italian and Jewish immigrants moved there, while the late 20th century saw a huge influx of newcomers from Latin America and Asia to the point that some refer to it as a “Chinatown Satellite.”
Several Elmhurst churches have NYC Landmark status, as do the former Elks Lodge No. 878 on Queens Boulevard and Newtown High School, which was designed in a Flemish Renaissance Revival style.
Supreme Court judge Antonin Scalia grew up there. Other notable residents include the rapper Eric B and opera singer Risë Stevens.
Image: Queens Historical Society