Kingsland Homestead has happy feet.
To avoid demolition due to a planned subway extension in 1923, the two-story Long Island half house — which is now Queens Historical Society’s headquarters — was physically moved about one block to 40-25 155th St. Then with more development on tap in 1968, the structure was rolled about one mile down Northern Boulevard from 155th Street to its current address at 143-35 37th Ave., thanks to the Society for the Preservation of Long Island Antiquities and the newly formed Kingsland Preservation Committee.
Get the whole story at Moving Kingsland, which opens at the Queens Historical Society with a slide show presentation on Thursday, May 2, at 6:30 pm.
This gallery exhibition mostly informs on the 1968 relocation via newspaper articles, documents, a radio report, and never-before-seen color prints developed from original Kodachrome slides.
“The exhibit will not only celebrate that historic day, Sept. 30, 1968, when the house was moved by trucks down Northern Boulevard as hundreds of people watched and cheered, it will also celebrate the history of the QHS,” stated QHS Executive Director Jason D. Antos, who curated the exhibit. “Few recall that QHS began as the Flushing Historical Society in 1904 and that President Theodore Roosevelt was its first honorary board member.”
General admission to the opening is $7. Then, Kingsland is open for tours on Tuesdays, Saturdays, and Sundays from 2:30 pm to 4:30 pm.
The only surviving example of 18th century architecture in Flushing, Kingsland was built by Charles Doughty, a well-established Quaker’s son, in the vicinity of Roosevelt Avenue and 154th Street in Flushing in around 1785. His son-in-law, British sea captain Joseph King, purchased it from him in 1801. There is a disagreement among historians as to whether the house’s current name comes from the second owner or the British monarch.
Images: QHS