South Jamaica, Long Island
 South Jamaica is a neighborhood located in the borough of Queens in the south of downtown Jamaica, the Long Island Rail Road tracks, Long Island, New York. It is part of Queens Community Board 12. The neighborhood is surrounded by Liberty Avenue, Merrick Boulevard, the Belt Parkway and the Van Wyck Expressway. South Jamaica is known as a large working-class community consisting primarily of one and two-family houses and a number of smaller apartment buildings, along with some public housing projects. As of the 2005 census, there were a total of 19,389 people and 5,798 households residing in the area. The median income for a household in the area was $42,999, and the average home sale price was $359,291. Males had a total population of 8916 (45.98 %) and 10473 (54.02 %) for females.
In the early 19th century, the area was originally a fertile farmland for the bludgeoning urban metropolis of New York. However, South Jamaica was developed with the rest of the borough, but is generally taken for granted as a place in which one can find exceptional shopping bargains, food from all over the world and of course, transit between JFK, LaGuardia and Manhattan. The full worth of South Jamaica has never been widely appreciated. In the early 1960s, Rochdale Village was the largest housing complex of its kind in the world when it was first ready for use. The complex is part of South Jamaica. York College, which is part of the City University of New York, houses a rare Jazz Museum. The national real estate boom has provided for a safe place of newly constructed multi-family homes. Currently, most of the homes that are for sale in the area were recently built.
Well-known people living in South Jamaica include Bob Beamon (Olympic Athlete), Lamar Odom (NBA Basketball Player), Rafer Alston (NBA Basketball Player), Mario Cuomo (former governor of New York), and Pharoah Monch (rapper formerly of the rap group Organized Konfusion). It has large African American immigrants with increasing numbers of Latin American and West Indies moving into the community in recent decades. There is also a small population of Indians, Pakistanis, Bangladeshis, Guyanese, Haitians, Trinidadians, and Russians live in this area. The local branch of the Queens library is located on Guy R. Brewer Boulevard. Live entertainment can be seen in the neighborhood with a focus on soul music. Some outstanding food and value can be found in streets hidden from the hordes that descend on Jamaica for shopping. Real estate in South Jamaica is very much affordable with a mixed of large apartment complexes and scores of individual homes. Home price value starts at $ 300 thousand and the better properties sell for more than twice the entry value. Apartment rentals starts at less than $ 100 thousand.
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