ASTORIA, LONG ISLAND

Astoria, Long Island

Astoria is a neighborhood in the northwestern corner of Queens, a borough in New York City, and physically part of Long Island. It is bounded by the East River and is adjacent to three other Queen neighborhoods such as Long Island City, Sunnyside, and Woodside. Astoria is located in Community Board 1. The elevation is 23 feet.

The village of Astoria was developed in 1839 by one Stephen Halsey, assisted by the creation of a Ferry station at 92nd St in Manhattan. Bits and pieces of this antebellum Astoria still exist; colonnaded mansions and all then go to 12th Street between 26th Avenue and Astoria Park South to look them over. In 1870 all of western Queens was chartered as Long Island City, an entity that lasted until it was consumed by expanding New York City in 1898. Until the eighteenth century the area now known as Astoria was known as Hallet Cove after the Englishman William Hallett bought 1,500 acres along the shore from the Dutch governor, Peter Stuyvesant in 1652. It was renamed in honor of the elder John Jacob Astor, who had his summer home here. Some residents wanted to call the area Sunswick, an Indian name, but Halsey persuaded them to change the name in the hopes that Astor would donate money to the village's young ladies' seminary and he eventually sent $500.

The New York City Department of Education operates Astoria's public schools. The school system is the largest system in the United States with over 1.1 million students taught in more than 1,400 separate schools. Astoria is far from exclusively a Greek enclave. Italians, Poles, Czechs, Ukrainians have also long been part of the mix. These days they have been joined by Brazilians, Latin Americans from various hispanophone countries and a very important Indian and Pakistani population. But the Greek association is real: the area has more Greeks than any urban area outside Athens; Greek food, Greek shop signs, and a variety of Greek newspapers are available everywhere. Astoria owns the food crown of Queens with more high-quality restaurants, bakeries, and markets than other neighborhoods.

There are also many attractions in Astoria that include Kaufman Astoria Studios Museum of the Moving Image, Isamu Noguchi Museum, and Socrates Sculpture Park. The Astoria Park is the famous and largest park in the neighborhood which is along on the East River with gorgeous views of Upper Manhattan and the Queensboro and Hellgate Bridges. The Hell Gate Bridge runs parallel to the Queens span of the Triborough Bridge which connects Queens, the Bronx, and Manhattan and drivers can see the length of the bridge just east of the roadway.