Rochdale, Long Island
 Rochdale or Rochdale Village is a 20-building each with 3 sections, 13 floors, and 5,860-apartment located in the borough of Queens, Long Island, New York. It is part of Queens Community Board 12. The neighborhood is within South Jamaica and surrounded to the north by Baisley Boulevard and Bedell Street, to the east by Bedell Street, to the south by 137th Avenue, and to the west by Guy R. Brewer Boulevard.
Rochdale is a residential cooperative constructed by architect Herman Jessor, consisting of five circles of four buildings in the South Jamaica neighborhood. The latitude of Rochdale is 40.676N. The longitude is -73.774W. It is in the Eastern Standard time zone. Elevation is 20 feet.
In 1963, Rochdale had officially opened with a population of 25,000. The neighborhood was originally taken its name right after the English Town of Rochdale, Greater Manchester, England, where the Rochdale Pioneers developed the Rochdale Principles of cooperation. The area is the former site of Jamaica Racetrack, which was operated by the Metropolitan Jockey Club and its successor, the Greater New York Association. Jamaica Racetrack was closed and demolished in 1959 when the Aqueduct Racetrack's improvements were finished. In 1960s, Rochdale was considered the largest experiment made ever in integrated housing in New York City. It was considered one of the most tangible products of a period in history. The population was at first heavily Jewish. After World War I, African Americans started to move to South Jamaica in large numbers. During that time, they were the largest tracts who owned private housing in the city adjacent to some desperate pockets of poverty. It was in mid-1970s that most whites moved from the community.
Today, the racial-makeup of Rochdale comprises mostly of African Americans having few whites. Rochdale is known as the United State’s second largest housing co-operative. It is an attractive community covering 122 blocks that would give the residents with a park-like setting and facilities of suburbia, within the limits of the Urban Jamaica Area. Children in Rochdale and the surrounding neighborhoods tend to attend racially balanced schools, and their parents shopped in Rochdale's malls and its cooperative supermarkets, the first in South Jamaica. The Rochdale Village library also serves the Rochdale Village-Springfield Gardens area. The library is a branch or division of Queens Borough Public Library and a 55th branch of the Queens system. There are two shoping malls, two supermarkets, two drugstores, and an assortment of others amenities in Rochdale. It also has its own power plant, police precinct, 3 schools and is enclosed by other stores on Guy R.Brewer Boulevard.
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