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Located in Forest Park, which itself is a living memorial to members of the Richmond Hill community who died in the first world war, the Richmond Hill War Memorial was designed by William Van Allen, architect of Manhattan's famous Chrysler building. This particular monument was commissioned not by the city or local government but by members of the community directly, specifically the Richmond Hill War Memorial Committee and the Gold Star Mothers Association of Richmond Hill. The dedication ceremony in 1925 was presided over by Queens Parks Commissioner Albert C. Benninger, the President of the Richmond Hill Mothers Association, Mrs. Mathilda Burling and United States Senator Royal S. Copeland. The monument was dedicated on November 10, 1925.The statue, central to the monument, was created by the Italian-born sculptor Joseph Pollia. Pollia was responsible for almost two dozen public monuments. It is said that the statue, My Buddy, bears a striking resemblance to a silent film star of the time, Francis X. Bushman, who some theories was used as a model. A second cast of the statue sits in Storm Lake, Iowa's Chautauqua Park.Adjacent to the sculpture is an ornamental flagstaff, a local honor roll, a a commemorative plaza named for Medal of Honor winner Sergeant Joseph E. Schaefer, a resident of the neighborhood specifically recognized for his distinguished service in the second World War.

Up close look at Joseph Pollia's 1925 doughboy statue.

Forward facing photo; "Honor Roll" and plaque and flagstaff now visible

Tribute to Staff Sgt. Joseph E. Schaefer, Richmond Hill resident and Medal of Honor

New York City Parks Department webpage on the monument, with links to a page about the Forest Park living monument as well.

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One of nine so-called "doughboy" statues found throughout New York City parks. This particular one depicts a solemn and contemplative rifle and helmet-bearing soldier with downcast eyes, known sometimes by the affectionate moniker "My Buddy." The monument in total contains a doughboy statue, a commemorative flagstaff and a small oval plaza dedicated to one of Richmond Hill's own distinguished soldiers.

Richmond Hill War Memorial

Instructor

Start at the public library in the Richmond Hill section of Queens & drive to other historical places in Forest Park & Woodhaven. You'll see historic factory and school buildings, parks, monuments, a carousel, & a tavern.

The first library in Queens was established in Flushing on a subscription basis in 1858; it became a free library in 1884. Seven local libraries were added in the 1890s, including at Richmond Hill. Richmond Hill was one of seven Queens library funded in part by matching funds from philanthropist Andrew Carnegie. Besides Richmond Hill, three other Carnegie Libraries are still operating in Queens, at Astoria, Poppenhusen, and Woodhaven. The Astoria Library was estimated in 1903 to cost $26,200 for a two-story brick structure. All of the local libraries except Flushing joined to form the Queens Library in 1901. Soon, Flushing and a new Carnegie library at College Point joined. A traveling library was set up in Queens for less-populated areas beginning in 1906; it was extended by the 1910s to schools and prisons. Bookmobile service, hospital library service, and shut-in service were added in the 1930s.A Miss Easby was the librarian at Richmond Hill in 1901, in a temporary location. The following year, a Miss Bragaw was the librarian. The Richmond Hill branch was the busiest library in the Borough of Queens for the month of November 1903, with over 3,700 books circulated. The Richmond Hill branch library building was designed by the firm Tuthill &amp; Higgins. A triangular tract that had been a park was chosen for the new library. Ground was broken in June 1904 and the foundation walls were nearly finished by July 1904. The finishing touches were still being made on the building in June 1905; the grand opening was in July 1905. The main speaker at the dedication ceremony was the Vice President of the Queens Borough Library, Mr. Fox. Jacob A. Riis, a prominent local man and author of a biography of President Theodore Roosevelt, offered portraits of himself and of Roosevelt to be hung in the new library but they were refused. According to the President of the Board of Trustees of the library system, Dr. Walter G. Frey, the library did not want to break tradition by hanging portraits of those who were still living. In all of 1907, over 63,000 volumes were borrowed at the branch. Miss Carrie Crysler was the chief librarian at Richmond Hill in 1909; she took a few months off that year after having surgery for appendicitis.Philip Everhard's (1901-1973) mural in the main reading room of the Richmond Hill branch was painted from 1936 to 1937. It depicts several sides to Richmond Hill's history. The left side represents a lighter, bucolic lifestyle with folks dancing and relaxing outdoors in the countryside. The right side is grittier, with manual laborers and children in the city. The middle of the 160-square-ft. mural shows planners and dreamers.

The Richmond Hill Branch of the Queens Public Library is one of seven public libraries in Queens built with funding from philanthropist Andrew Carnegie. There was an earlier lending library for Richmond Hill locals established by Ella J. Flanders in 1899; this library building was dedicated in July 1905. A rear addition in 1929 housed the children's library. The building is also noted for a large mural inside, showing several scenes from Richmond Hill's history. The mural "The Story of Richmond Hill" was painted by Philip Everwood as part of the Works Progress Administration program in the mid-1930s. The building continues to be used as a public library and is a contributing building to the Richmond Hill National Register Historic District, listed in 2019.

Richmond Hill Branch, Queens Public Library

Public School No. 66 was built in the Union Free School District #7 of the Town of Jamaica. The architect of the Victorian Eclectic style structure with Romanesque Revival details is unknown, but was probably C.B.J. Snyder, Superintendent of School Buildings for the Town of Jamaica in Queens; the contractor was a carpenter from Brooklyn Hills in Queens named Thomas J. Clarke. The school was built when Queens was newly made a borough of New York City and the administrations of the previous school districts were dissolved and consolidated into the NYC schools administration in Manhattan. The school is 2.5 stories tall on a raised basement, made of brick with sandstone and terra cotta details on a stone foundation. There are gabled dormer windows in the attic space and ornamental stucco details in the gable faces. The original flooring when the school was finished in 1898 was wood and the sloping roof was covered in slate. A 1980s renovation replaced the roofing tiles with asphalt shingles, but an historic restoration project in 2001 replaced the covering with slate once again. The open belfry of the Romanesque Revival style tower used to summon children to school with a bell that has since been lost. The wooden access to the belfry from the attic had deteriorated and the tower's restoration was delayed until the 2000s. Two brick chimneys used to lead from classroom fireplaces; and heated the attic where the early custodians and their families lived. Spaces between two first-floor and two second-floor classrooms were designed to hold firewood.Two twins of the P.S. 66 building (P.S. 64 and P.S. 65) once stood in the area but have since been demolished; P.S. 64 was on Broadway near Shore Ave. A brick and steel-beamed rear (east) addition to P.S. 66 in 1905 to 1906 allowed for a coal-burning furnace in the basement with its own chimney, classrooms on the first and second floors, and a third-floor auditorium. The school and addition cost over $139,000 to build. Some complained to the local newspapers that two new schools in Woodhaven/ Richmond Hill were still vacant in 1900, while many schools in the Borough of Brooklyn were so severely overcrowded that students attended a half-day so another group could attend the other half of the day. The P.S. 66 neighborhood's population numbers hadn't caught up yet, since the local farmland hadn't been transformed into subdivisions yet. Finally, on February 1, 1901, P.S. 66 opened as "The Brooklyn Hills School." Four years later, the school's seven classrooms held 278 students. Many were the children of Italian, German, and Irish immigrants. By 1918, the classrooms numbered 18 with 768 students.The original Parent and Teachers' Association (PTA) at P.S. 66 was called the Kindergarten Mother's Club. They successfully pushed for a Long Island Rail Road viaduct to eliminate trains crossing a nearby street, and paving of the pathway from Jamaica Ave. to Union Place. The former names for the nearby streets were Freedom Ave., then Union Place (for 102nd St.). Tulip St., then Emerson St. (85th Ave.); and Walnut St., then Ferriss Pl. (85th Rd.).In May 1997, New York City Mayor Rudy Guiliani came to P.S. 66 to announce a new initiative to the media; "Project Smart Schools" would provide each NYC school four computers, a printer, and an internet connection by 1998.

The large red brick building at the corner of 102nd St. and 85th Ave. in the Richmond Hill section of Queens is Public School No. 66. The P.S. No. 66 building dates to 1898 to 1899, although it did not open as a public school until 1901. A three-story rear addition on the east end is from 1905 - 1906. The school has been known by a number of names, including Brooklyn Hills School, the Oxford School, and since 2003 as the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis School (for her passion for historic preservation and literacy). The school building was listed in the New York and National Registers of Historic Places in 2003 and was designated a New York City landmark in 2010. The building continues to hold a public grammar school.

Public School No. 66

In the early twentieth century, there were nearly two dozen family cemeteries in Queens; by 2001, there were only a dozen left. At least two, including the Wyckoff-Snediker Family Cemetery, have been listed on the National Register (the other is the Riker-Lent Family Cemetery in Steinway, listed with the surviving Lent Homestead). A few others have been designated New York City landmarks.Over 130 of the marked graves have Wyckoff or Snediker surnames. Other families interred in marked graves include Eldert, Sudyam, Shaw, Hendricks, and Lott; they represent the residents of the area's farms. Some locals were buried instead in the cemetery of the Dutch Reformed Church at New Lots in Brooklyn (also a Clio entry). Gravemarkers range from fieldstone and brownstone to granite and marble. Some have symbols carved into them that were popular funerary art in the Victorian era, like a weeping willow tree or a faded rose. The oldest marked grave appears to be of John Lott, who died on September 13th 1793. The lone large, upright monument in an obelisk style is made of polished granite and is for the Eldert family. Garret V.W. Eldert (born 1824 - died 1890) was a hotel operator whose farm was near present-day Rockaway Blvd. and Atlantic Ave. An attorney named William F. Wyckoff had the cemetery's inscriptions recorded around 1902 and incorporated into booklet form by Samuel Knapp Frost in 1912. The no-longer active cemetery was surveyed in October 1919 and graves were mapped; Brooklynite Mr. W. Eardeley documented over 20 private cemeteries in Queens. The head of the Queens Borough Topographical Department, Charles Underhill Powell, compiled Eardeley's results into a report published in 1932 (see the link below). The overall dimensions of the burial ground are about 266 ft. north-south by 80 ft. east-west. A perpetual footpath right-of-way connected Jamaica Avenue to the south end of the cemetery and was still visible on a 1933 local map; it has become an access road to the rear garages of nearby homes. There was a second footpath in the 1930s from the north end of the cemetery to Park Lane South; this path has been absorbed into the backyards of the nearby houses on 98th St.The church adjacent to the cemetery was not associated with the burial ground historically. The present stone church was built in the mid-1920s (and also was listed in the National Register in 2001) to replace an earlier church dating to 1901. St. Matthew's Episcopal Church bought the abandoned Wyckoff-Snediker Family Cemetery in the early 1960s for $500. The burial ground was often vandalized and had been seized and auctioned off by the City of New York for non-payment of taxes. Members of the parish, the Queens Historical Society, the Woodhaven Historical Society, and the St. Thomas the Apostle Woodhaven History Club have worked since the 1990s to reset fallen gravestones and clear the overgrown site of debris.When the cemetery was documented for listing in the National register in 2001, the lot was bounded by a wooden stockade-style fence. Mature trees and flowering shrubs were among the plantings in the cemetery. In the 2010s, the church building changed hands from St. Matthew's Episcopal (which closed in 2011 and moved elsewhere) to All Saints Episcopal in 2013. Their website describes All Saints Episcopal as a "catholic parish of an Episcopal church." The new owners have worked to renovate the church building as well as the cemetery.

Behind the stone church on 96th St. in the Woodhaven section of Queens is the Wyckoff-Snediker Family Cemetery. The cemetery isn't visible from the sidewalk and is surrounded by wooden fencing. The cemetery's marked graves date back to 1793 and up to 1892. The Wyckoff and Snediker families donated land from their neighboring farms in 1785 to create the burial ground lot of a half-acre, when Woodhaven was still rural. The cemetery was listed on the New York and National Registers of Historic Places in 2001. The inactive cemetery land was purchased by the neighboring church in the 1960s and is currently not readily accessible to the public.

Wyckoff-Snediker Family Cemetery

The carousel was designed and constructed by the D.C. Muller brothers; Daniel, Carl, and Alfred, who were considered some of the finest master-carvers of carousels in the world in the 1900s. They hand-carved forty-six&nbsp;lifelike&nbsp;animals, including jumping and standing&nbsp;horses, a lion, a tiger, and a deer, which were&nbsp;laid out in three rows. All of the&nbsp;animals&nbsp;could be ridden as steeds, and there were even two chariots on the carousel. A Ruth &amp; Sohn Band Organ&nbsp;was installed, which would play fairground music as the herd spun around. The carousel was opened to the public in 1903 at Lakeview Park in Massachusetts.&nbsp; When it was moved to New York, the carousel was housed in a modernist pavilion designed by&nbsp;Victor F. Christ-Janer, the Connecticut architect who also purchased and relocated the carousel in the 1970s. In&nbsp;1985 the carousel closed, but thanks to an extensive restoration project, it reopened five years later. Further closures happened in 2008, but since 2011 it has remained open and in operation.&nbsp;

The Forest Park Carousel is a historic early 20th-century carousel originally located in Dracut, Massachusetts, but it was moved to Forest Park in Queens in 1971.  The carousel is one of only two surviving examples built by the famous D.C. Muller brothers. Astoundingly, it is still in operation to this day. It was added to the list of New York City Designated Landmarks in Queens in June, 2013.

Forest Park Carousel

Queens’ Forest Park, which borders the neighborhoods of Richmond Hill, Kew Gardens, Forest Hills, Glendale and Woodhaven, is home to the Memorial Trees on Forest Park Drive.1 In 1919, The Woodhaven War Heroes Permanent Memorial Committee, a product of the cooperation of several local organizations, met to create a plan to honor the 53 fallen Woodhaven men.2 The committee decided to plant an oak tree for each man around Forest Park’s golf clubhouse. The trees would receive silver name plates, and the soldiers were to be immortalized in a granite monument with a bronze plaque containing their names. The trees were planted by the end of April, and a ceremony was held on May 11th, 1919. 17 more trees were planted in later years to include the men who had parents living in Woodhaven, or were reported, by conflicting newspapers, to have been from Woodhaven or Ozone Park or Cypress Hills.2Subsequent Woodhaven Memorial Day parades would begin at 91st Avenue and 84th Street and end with a ceremony at the Memorial Trees, which were decorated with notes, flowers and red, white and blue ribbons.2 In the 1930s, Woodhaven Boulevard was widened from a single road to ten lanes, and this forced the Woodhaven chapter of the American Legion, a wartime veteran’s organization, to move to a new address.3 The granite monument with the plaque was moved from Forest Park to the front yard of the American Legion Post 118 headquarters. From 1942, the Memorial Day parade still began at 91st Avenue and 84th Street, but instead of ending at the Memorial Trees, passed through a new World War II monument.3 The parade ended at the Post 118 building, where a Garden of Remembrance was set up in the yard, as it was dotted with white crosses.As the parade moved away, and the community grew, the traditions and the history behind the Memorial Trees became lost. Ed Wendell, President of the Woodhaven Cultural and Historical Society, came across an article about the Memorial Trees in the Brooklyn Eagle archives.4 He read that the trees were along the part of Forest Park Drive that ran in front of Oak Ridge. Oak Ridge is the former golf clubhouse turned administrative office of Forest Park. In late 2014, Wendell was able to identify the remaining Memorial Trees by looking at an aerial photo of the area from 1924.5 After more than 70 years, the Memorial Trees were decorated for Memorial Day in 2015. The endeavor was made possible by the Woodhaven Cultural and Historical Society, American Legion Post 118 and Project Woodhaven.6 On May 20th, 2017, Forest Park Drive was officially co-named Forest Park Memorial Drive to not only honor the Memorial Trees, but the other war memorials scattered throughout the park.7

Fifty-three oak trees were planted along Forest Park Drive in April 1919, with 17 more added in later years, to honor the young men Woodhaven lost in the First World War. The trees were at the center of annual Memorial Day parades until 1942, when the parade was rerouted to other parts of Woodhaven. Over the following decades, the celebrations involving the Memorial Trees stopped, and the trees’ significance was eventually forgotten. In 2015, the Woodhaven Cultural and Historical Society rediscovered the trees and revived the tradition of tying ribbons around the many Memorial Trees still standing today.  

Forest Park Memorial Trees

Dexter Park was a ballpark located in Queens, New York. Although it is debated, the ballpark was supposedly named after a racehorse named Dexter who was apparently buried there. As a result, many people started referring to right field as horse heaven. Prior to being used solely for sports, the park was home to various small events including pigeon shooting. In the late 19th Century, the ballpark became home to a Negro League baseball team named the Brooklyn Elevated Railroad Team. The team received this name because the park was located just across the county line from Brooklyn.

&nbsp;On April 14, 1889, Dexter Park featured its first big baseball game as the Merritts came to play the Brooklyn Elevated Railroad Team for a Negro League game. Throughout the 1890s, Dexter Park continued to be home to a host of baseball games including the Royal Arcanum League. In 1901, William Ulmer Brewery became the new owner when he purchased Dexter Park. Under his ownership, Dexter Park was home to not only baseball but football as well. One of the most important baseball teams at the ballpark during this time was the Brooklyn Royal Giants, a Negro League baseball team. Between 1905 and 1913, the Brooklyn Royal Giants experienced a great deal of success. The Giants would later leave Dexter Park after 1927; however, they would still return to play friendly games against a local semipro team, the Bushwicks.

Overtime, Dexter Park became a more and more popular local ballpark, featuring home teams such as the Brooklyn Bushwicks. After being purchased in 1922 by Max Rosner, a new grandstand was built that improved seating capacity by 6,000 with an addition of 2,000 more seats shortly thereafter. Interestingly enough, Dexter Park also had the first focused lighting system of any baseball field, which was installed by Rosner’s own son. Playing the first night game in 1930, fans and local reporters soon began to rave about the enjoyment of nighttime baseball.

In the 1950s, Dexter Park was converted into a racetrack, and in September of 1955, the ballpark saw its final baseball game. Unfortunately, the ballpark was torn down in 1956. Today, the site is no more than a supermarket parking lot.

Dexter Park was a Negro League baseball park located in Queens, New York. The park hosted many football and baseball games, as well as other local events. Not only was the ballpark home to multiple Negro League baseball teams, it was also home to the first nighttime game in 1930, which featured the first focused lighting system on a baseball field. Unfortunately, the baseball park was torn down in 1956 and is now the site of a supermarket parking lot. 

Dexter Park

Neir's Tavern was founded as The Old Blue Pump House in 1829 by Cadwallader R. Coldon (his cousin, Cadwallader D., was Mayor of New York City). Cadwallader R. is said to have been the manager of the Union Race Course down the street from the tavern. The name was changed to The Old Abbey in the 1830s. A local politician, Nathan F. Graves. bought the business in 1851. In the old street address system, the bar was at the northwest corner of Snediker and Grand streets.Louis Neir reportedly took over the business in 1898. In an 1899 business directory for Queens, Louis Neir is listed as owner of the Junction Hotel, also in the Woodhaven section of Queens, on Broadway at the corner with Rockaway Rd. The only Neir listed as having a liquor license in Queens in 1899 was Charles Neir, at University Place on the corner with Benedict Ave. in Woodhaven. Perhaps the 1898 date is off, or the directory wasn't up to date.By the late 1919s, the combination bar and hotel of Louis Neir was on the corner of 78th St. and 88th Ave., as it is today; around 2021, the block of 78th St. by the bar was renamed Neir's Tavern Way in honor of the local landmark. It is said that the bar was a speakeasy during Prohibition with a bordello upstairs. The Neir family sold the tavern in 1967. The bar closed briefly in 2009, but Gordon Loy purchased it and undertook a renovation. The grand reopening was held in June 2010. Loy had given up hope of keeping Nier's Tavern open after running the business for ten years. A new owner of the building sharply raised the rent, and the building needed repairs. Loy called into a local radio show in January 2020 and spoke to NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio. The mayor and the Queens Chamber of Commerce came through and helped Loy save the bar. They convinced the landlord to lower the rent and gave Loy a $90,000 grant. Loy was able to convert his planned goodbye-to-the-bar party into a celebration of its salvation.The walls of Neir's are covered with photos of regulars and movie stars, and a former patron who lived in the neighborhood before becoming a famous actress - Mae West. There's a Mae West portrait in one of the alcoves. Since Neir's is a long block from the main road (Jamaica Ave.), it almost didn't get chosen as a filming location for Goodfellas. The bar was found by accident when a film scout in 1990 was looking for a pay phone and recognized its visual appeal. At least one real-life local "wise guy" admits to using the tavern as a place to conduct business. The Goodfellas scene where the Lufthansa heist was planned was filmed in Neir's. Besides Goodfellas, another movie filmed in Neir's was Tower Heist (2011) starring Ben Stiller and Tea Leoni. One of the late chef and foodie Anthony Bourdain's last episodes of his television series was on his native Queens eateries, part of which was filmed in Neir's.The wooden bar made from a huge slab of mahogany around 1860 and the pressed tin ceiling are some of the interior architectural highlights. The pair of sliding pocket doors that appeared in the Goodfellas movie no longer lead to a bowling alley but lead to a closet with a new back wall (the other half of the building is now a martial arts center).

One of the oldest bars in the country is Neir's Tavern, whose slogan is "the most famous bar you've never heard of." It opened in 1829 as the Old Blue Pump House. The tavern was right across the street from the entrance to a horseracing track, the Union Race Course. The name of the business changed several times before Louis Neir purchased it in 1898 and renamed it Louis Neir's Social Hall. Some scenes from the movie "Goodfellas" were filmed in Neir's. The wooden interior mahogany bar dates to about 1860. Neir's Tavern was almost forced to close in 2020 due to rising rents. A grant from the City of New York saved the business. A historical marker has been erected outside the bar, which continues to serve food (including the Goodfellas burger) and drink.

Neir's Tavern

French immigrant Florian Grosjean entered the kitchen and cutlery business with Charles Lalance in the 1850s. Grosjean mainly operated the company out of its New York City firm and factory located on Pearl Street in lower Manhattan from 1856 to 1863. As the company’s success continued, Lalance returned to France permanently as the firm’s European representative. Grosjean operated as the American director, overseeing the company's growth in New York and beyond.  By 1863, the Lalance &amp; Grosjean Manufacturing Company had outgrown its Pearl Street location. Grosjean looked to Woodhaven, Queens, to expand his tinware operation. A rural locality, Woodhaven’s proximity to Brooklyn, and inexpensive land made the community a prime location for the manufacturing business. In 1863, Grosjean purchased the former site of the John Sharpe factory, conveniently located on Atlantic Avenue, the main thoroughfare for the Long Island Railroad or LIRR. The factory’s location profited from using LIRR to ship manufactured goods and obtain raw materials. The site flourished as demand steadily increased.  Two years after the Woodhaven factory’s initial opening, Grosjean began to build company housing for the business’ employees. Much of the original workers’ housing are now privately owned, located by Atlantic Avenue between 95th and 97th Avenues in Woodhaven. Grosjean, himself purchased property for a private residence located close to the factory. Formerly situated at the present-day intersections of Atlantic Avenue and Woodhaven Boulevard, the Grosjean Estate stood from 1866 to 1912.   In February 1876, a massive fire damaged most of the original factory structure and machinery. Newspapers, such as the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, reported, “It will, for several months at least, stop one of the chief industries in this part of the State, and must leave unemployed several hundred skilled artisans.” Concern for the unemployed grew, and Grosjean decidedly provided his employees with partial pay during the factory’s reconstruction. The factory re-opened in August of 1876, a mere six months after the fire. In addition to new safeguards to prevent another devastating fire, Grosjean installed a Clock Tower on the northeast side of the factory, which still stands today.  Woodhaven developed considerably upon the establishment of the Lalance &amp; Grosjean tinware factory. A report by the Brooklyn Daily Eagle in 1893 states, “When Charles Lalance and Florian Grosjean opened a tinware factory in Woodhaven, the surrounding country was farming land. Today it is the site of one of the finest villages on Long Island, with a population of over six thousand souls.” The company grew continuously prosperous as the business opened another plant in Harrisburg, PA, in 1893. The company operated two other branches in Boston and Chicago in preceding years. In 1898, the company issued mess kits for the United States Army during the Spanish-American War.  By 1900, the company was mass-producing its popular Agate Ware chain, which claimed not to contain poisons such as arsenic and lead in its products’ coating. Florian Grosjean passed away in 1903, remaining active in the company up until his death. During World War II, the factory produced another chain of kitchenware known as Crusader Ware. The Woodhaven factory continued to operate until 1955, when the company decided to shut down the site due to declining sales. The factory’s surrounding buildings ultimately deteriorated over time. In 1984, the remaining structure, including the Clock Tower, was converted into a retail center which continues to be in use today.

The Lalance & Grosjean Manufacturing Company factory produced tinware and other products at this site from 1863 to 1955. Established by partners Florian Grosjean and Charles Lalance, the business’ success helped spur the growth of the Woodhaven neighborhood in Queens. Moving their company from Pearl Street in lower Manhattan to Woodhaven allowed the partners to utilize the Long Island Railroad on Atlantic Avenue to transport manufactured goods and grow the company to upwards of 1,000 employees by the 1890s. In February 1876, a fire damaged most of the original factory structure but by August of that same year, Grosjean had the factory back in operation with repairs to the building also leading to the installed the building's distinctive clock tower. The Lalance & Grosjean Manufacturing Co. was widely known for its Agate and Crusader kitchen utensil wear. The building now serves as the location of various retailers and restaurants as well as office space for health care providers. 

Richmond Hill - Forest Park - Woodhaven historical driving tour, Queens

Richmond Hill War Memorial

Introduction

Images

Backstory and Context

Sources

Additional Information