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Bayside
Neighborhood of Queens
Bell Boulevard in Bayside looking north from Northern Boulevard
Bell Boulevard in Bayside looking north from Northern Boulevard
Country  United States
State  New York
City New York City
County/Borough Queens
Community District Queens 11
Named for Place name of the Native American Lenape
Population
 • Total 43,808
Ethnicity
 • White 46.9%
 • Asian 37.3%
 • Hispanic 11.6%
 • Black 2.6%
 • Other/Multiracial 1.6%
Economics
 • Median income $95,114
Time zone UTC−5 (EST)
 • Summer (DST) UTC−4 (EDT)
ZIP Codes
11360, 11361, 11364
Area codes 718, 347, 929, and 917

Bayside is a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Queens. It is bounded by Whitestone to the northwest, the Long Island Sound and Little Neck Bay to the northeast, Douglaston to the east, Oakland Gardens to the south, and Fresh Meadows to the west. CNN Money ranked Bayside as one of the most expensive housing markets nationally when analyzing comparable detached homes throughout the United States. Despite its large housing stock of free-standing homes, it nationally ranks high to very high in population density.

The first known written occurrence of the name Bayside was in a deed dated 1798, written as Bay Side. During the 19th century, Bayside was primarily farmland, where wealthy people from Manhattan would visit it as a rural resort. During the 1920s and 1930s, there were several movie studios in Astoria, and many movie stars lived in Bayside, some in posh homes. After the end of World War II, residential development of Bayside increased dramatically, particularly because of its station on the Long Island Rail Road's Port Washington Branch, where a commuter could ride one train straight to Manhattan.

Bayside is located in Queens Community District 11 and its ZIP Codes are 11360, 11361, and 11364. It is patrolled by the New York City Police Department's 111th Precinct. Politically, Bayside is represented by the New York City Council's 19th and 23rd Districts.

History

Bayside Yacht Club, Bayside, Queens (1917)
Bayside Yacht Club on Little Neck Bay, 1917

Bayside's history dates back to 2000 B.C.E., when the Matinecock Native American tribe first settled there. In the late 17th century, the area was settled by English colonists. By the middle of the 18th century, early settlers left their homes in Flushing and developed a farming community, Bay Side. During the Revolutionary War, the Bayside-Little Neck area suffered from raids by whaleboatmen from the Connecticut shores. In the 19th century Bayside was still mostly farmland. Middle 20th century urban sprawl in New York City, with the help of more convenient and accessible transportation, led to its development.

During the 1920s, many actors and actresses, such as Rudolph Valentino, lived in Bayside. At the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century Bayside saw an influx of people associated with the theater and movie industries. The town was then established as a colony for stage and screen stars. When rumors ran rampant through the acting community that Bayside would be the location of a new movie and production studio, many actors purchased homes in anticipation of an easy commute to the studio. However, this rumored studio never materialized. When Hollywood emerged as the capital of the movie industry during the 1920s, many actors left Bayside to pursue careers in California.

Location and boundaries

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Throgs Neck Bridge between the Bronx and Queens

Bayside is bordered by the Bronx to the north across the Long Island Sound and Douglaston Manor across the Little Neck Bay. The eastern land border is the Cross Island Parkway and Douglaston; the western is Francis Lewis Boulevard/Utopia Parkway and Auburndale; the southern is Long Island Expressway and Oakland Gardens. The neighborhood of Bayside Hills is itself a newer subdivision within Bayside.

Bayside Gables

Bayside Gables is a privately owned gated community located near the Bay Terrace shopping center and the Little Neck Bay. Arguably one of the wealthiest areas in Queens (along with Forest Hills Gardens, Malba, Holliswood, Jamaica Estates, and Douglaston Manor), homes in this community can sell for as high as 4 million dollars.

Bayside Hills

Bayside Hills is a subdivision of Bayside's south side, bordered by 48th Ave to the north, the Long Island Expressway to the south, 211th Street to the west, and Springfield Boulevard on the east. The homes in Bayside Hills have more value and are more upscale, many of which were built by Gross Morton.

Bayside Hills is known for its thirty-three street malls and accents, especially the gatehouse (Bell Boulevard at 48th street), gateposts (48th Avenue from 216th Street) and Bayside Hills Street Clock (Bell Boulevard and 214th Street). The Victorian style street clock sits upon the Leo Green Clock Mall, dedicated to the local civic activist. Further east, Captain William C Dermody Triangle Park (48 Avenue and 216 Street) memorializes Dermody's abolitionism and service in the Civil War, leading him to be mortally wounded at the Battle of Spotsylvania Court House. Much of the public green space is maintained by the NYC Parks Department and the Bayside Hills Civic Association.

The zip code 11364 is shared with Oakland Gardens.

Bay Terrace

Throgs Neck Bridge aerial 2003
Aerial view of Bay Terrace, with the Throgs Neck Bridge crossing the East River to the north

Bay Terrace is an affluent neighborhood often considered part of the larger area of Bayside. The area encompasses gated cooperative/condominium developments such as the Bay Club and Baybridge Condos. Other cooperative/condominium developments include the Towers at Waters Edge, the Kennedy Street Quad, the Bayside Townhouse Condominiums, Bay Country Owners, Bell Owners and others. The gated estate community of the "Bayside Gables" is also located within the Bay Terrace neighborhood, being the site of some of the only single family homes in the area. Bay Terrace overlooks the East River and the approaches to the Throgs Neck Bridge from the Clearview Expressway and Cross Island Parkway. The neighborhood is part of Queens Community Board 7 and Queens Community Board 11, and is located within ZIP code 11360, bounded on the west by the Clearview Expressway, on the south by 26th Avenue and 28th Avenue, and to the east and north by the Little Neck Bay and Little Bay (which are a cove of the East River and a neighborhood, respectively). The civic organization serving Bay Terrace is the Bay Terrace Community Alliance (BTCA).

In 1639, Dutch Governor Willem Kieft (1597–1647) purchased the land that today encompasses Queens County from the Matinecock. William Lawrence (1622–1680), who served as a magistrate under Dutch and English administrations, was granted a parcel of land by King Charles II in 1645 that included a large portion of what is today Bayside, in addition to College Point, Whitestone, and Fort Totten. Bayside began its course of development from an agricultural community to a suburb when the North Shore Railroad was extended in 1866. During the following several decades, the Bayside Land Association purchased farms for development. Bay Terrace, originally included within the bounds of Bayside, remained composed of farms and large estates until the 1950s, when Cord and Charles Meyer sold their 225-acre (0.91 km2) farm for development. By 1952, residential development of Bay Terrace Sections 1–12 began and continued into the mid-1960s. The Bay Terrace at Bayside Shopping Center was bui;t in the 1950s.

The New York City Department of City Planning conducted a transportation study of Bay Terrace in 2004. Findings included parking and intersection issues, including poor access to the Cross Island Parkway. Eventually, a median will be constructed along the length of 212th street, with increased access to the Cross Island Parkway near the Baybridge Commons Shopping Center and reconstruction of the existing entrance and exit ramps. The Bay Terrace at Bayside Shopping Center plans on adding new storefronts to their plaza. including World Kitchen; Aéropostale; and PM Pediatrics, a state-of-the-art pediatric emergency care facility.

Bay Terrace has the ZIP code 11360. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the estimated 2012 median family income for the census tracts encompassing the Bay Terrace area of New York City (997.03, 997.04, and 997.05), exclusively, is $103, 263. The current population of Bay Terrace, Queens, New York City is 13,392 while the population density is 14,683.8 per square mile. The median home value of the area is $1,253,000. The median age of individuals residing in 11360 is 48.9 years.

Oakland Gardens

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Bell Boulevard & 77th Avenue

Oakland Gardens is a middle class neighborhood in the southern part of Bayside, bounded to the north by the Long Island Expressway, to the east by Alley Pond Park, to the south by Union Turnpike, and to the west by Cunningham Park. Whitestone is to the north, and Queens Village and Bellerose are to the south and southeast, respectively. The neighborhood is part of Queens Community Board 11. Fredrick Newbold Lawrence built a mansion in the area in 1847 called "The Oaks", and the neighborhood's name probably derives from that estate. Many people refer to Oakland Gardens as "southern Bayside" because of its proximity and similarity to Bayside. Its Median income is $54,031.

Transportation

Bayside's highways include the Clearview Expressway (I-295) and the Long Island Expressway (I-495), as well as the Cross Island Parkway. The north end of the Brooklyn-Queens Greenway is in Little Bay Park, under the Throgs Neck Bridge approaches, with convenient connection to the Utopia Parkway bicycle lane. It lies between Cross Island Parkway and Little Neck Bay, connecting Bayside to Douglaston and Alley Pond Park, and to central Queens and Coney Island. Francis Lewis Boulevard is a major street notorious for drag racing, which resulted in several fatalities to drivers and pedestrians over the years.

Bayside is connected to Manhattan, northern Queens and Long Island by the Bayside station, one of a few express stations on the Long Island Rail Road's Port Washington Branch. The New York City Subway's 7 <7> trains serves nearby Flushing at Flushing–Main Street station. New York City Bus's Q12, Q13, Q16, Q27, Q28, Q30, Q31, Q46, Q76, Q88 local routes, and QM2, QM3, QM5, QM6, QM20, QM32, QM35, QM36 express routes. The Nassau Inter-County Express' n20G route also serves Bayside.

After the MTA began extending the 7 <7> trains of the IRT Flushing Line westward into Manhattan in 2007, the 2012 fiscal year Community District Needs of Queens report suggests extending the line eastward from Flushing–Main Street in order to relieve congestion in Downtown Flushing. Early plans for the line was to have it end in Bayside at Bell Boulevard near Northern Boulevard.

Demographics

Local data from the Census Bureau's American Community Survey (based on samples from 2005 to 2009) shows that the demographics of Bayside changes significantly from area to area. For example, the pocket bordered by the Clearview Expressway to the west, Northern Boulevard to the north, Bell Boulevard to the east, and 48th Avenue to the south has a plurality (40%) of Asians, while 31% are Hispanic, 19% black and 13% white. Other areas are majority white, mostly inhabited by those of Italian, Greek, and Irish descent.

2010 Census

Based on data from the 2010 United States Census, the population of Bayside-Bayside Hills was 43,808, a decrease of 563 (1.3%) from the 44,371 counted in 2000. Covering an area of 1,857.24 acres (751.60 ha), the neighborhood had a population density of 23.6 inhabitants per acre (15,100/sq mi; 5,800/km2).

The racial makeup of the neighborhood was 46.9% (20,550) White, 2.6% (1,160) African American, 0.1% (24) Native American, 37.3% (16,324) Asian, 0.0% (7) Pacific Islander, 0.3% (112) from other races, and 1.3% (565) from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 11.6% (5,066) of the population.

The entirety of Community Board 11, which comprises Bayside and Douglaston–Little Neck, had 119,628 inhabitants as of NYC Health's 2018 Community Health Profile, with an average life expectancy of 84.7 years. This is higher than the median life expectancy of 81.2 for all New York City neighborhoods. Most inhabitants are youth and middle-aged adults: 19% are between the ages of between 0–17, 26% between 25–44, and 31% between 45–64. The ratio of college-aged and elderly residents was lower, at 6% and 18% respectively.

As of 2017, the median household income in Community Board 11 was $70,155. In 2018, an estimated 14% of Bayside and Douglaston–Little Neck residents lived in poverty, compared to 19% in all of Queens and 20% in all of New York City. One in seventeen residents (6%) were unemployed, compared to 8% in Queens and 9% in New York City. Rent burden, or the percentage of residents who have difficulty paying their rent, is 49% in Bayside and Douglaston–Little Neck, lower than the boroughwide and citywide rates of 53% and 51% respectively. Based on this calculation, as of 2018, Bayside and Douglaston–Little Neck are considered to be high-income relative to the rest of the city and not gentrifying.

Recreation

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Little Bay Park

Landmarks

La Salette Shrine Bayside 204-44
Shrine of Our Lady of La Salette
  • Lawrence Cemetery – 216th Street & 42nd Avenue.
  • Fort Totten, New York – A fort built during the Civil War to guard the north entrance to New York Harbor, along with Fort Schuyler in the Bronx, in 1862.
  • Straiton-Storm Cigar Factory – Built c. 1872, the factory was the largest cigar manufacturer in America. The three-story wood frame building was of the French Second Empire style. After a large warehouse fire in late 1976, the factory was refurbished to its original state.
  • All Saints Episcopal Church – The first church in Bayside, built in 1892, contains examples of Louis Comfort Tiffany's work.
  • Cornell-Appleton house at 214–33 33rd Road. Archibald Cornell's wife inherited the 100-acre (0.40 km2) farm from her father more than 160 years ago. This twelve-room house is thought to be one of the oldest in Bayside. With past and continuing research, it has been traced back to 1852. In 1905, the house was sold to Edward Dale Appleton, of the Appleton Publishing Company. Mrs. Appleton and her sister were passengers aboard the RMS Titanic when it hit an iceberg and sank. Both women were rescued by the ship Carpathia. This is the second-oldest home in Queens.
  • Corbett House, 221-04 Corbett Rd., the home of world champion boxer "Gentleman Jim" Corbett from 1902 until his death in 1933, and of his widow Vera until her death in 1959.
  • 38–39 214th Place, home of Charles Johnson Post (1873–1956), a government official, artist, and political cartoonist whose posthumously published The Little War of Private Post (1960) is one of the classic accounts of the Spanish–American War of 1898.
  • 35–25 223rd Street, home of actor W.C. Fields.
  • "Authors House", an attached two-family house with the double addresses of 46–02 215th Street and 214-30 46th Avenue, which has been the home of more authors than any other building in Bayside.
  • Gloria Swanson's home, 216-07 40th Avenue, was the home of Swanson, famed silent film actress.
  • Rudolph Valentino's home, 201-10 Cross Island Parkway, was where Valentino, an Italian actor and early pop icon, lived. It was also once home to Fiorello LaGuardia, the mayor of New York City from 1934–1945. In 1993, the building was converted into a two-floor restaurant/banquet hall named Cafe on the Green. The popular eatery shut down in January 2009 when the city Parks Department forced out the former operators amid reports of mob ties and sloppy finances. The site’s new concessionaire, Friendship Restaurant Group, began a $4 million renovation project February 1, 2009. The new restaurant, Valentino's on the Green, opened on September 8, 2010.

In popular culture

  • The starring characters of the HBO series Entourage are originally from Bayside.
  • The character George Costanza from the TV series Seinfeld mentions in the episode The Strike that his family was from Bayside (until they were driven out because of their belief in Festivus).
  • The movie Sally of the Sawdust (1925) was filmed in Bayside.
  • Bayside is featured in a 1997 episode of NYPD Blue titled "Taillight's Last Gleaming". NYPD Lieutenant Arthur Fancy is pulled over driving through Bayside with his wife, by two NYPD officers assigned to a Bayside precinct, for reasons that appear to be racially motivated. Fancy then has the senior officer transferred out of his predominantly white precinct in Bayside to a predominantly black precinct in Brooklyn North as punishment.
  • The movie Frequency is set in Bayside. Dennis Quaid's character brags that he is from "Bayside, born and raised!".
  • The character Adrian Cronauer played by Robin Williams in the movie Good Morning, Vietnam is from Bayside, Queens. When asked "What are Queens?", Cronauer responds: "Tall thin men who like show tunes."
  • The movie Pride and Glory had several scenes filmed in Bayside, including the family dinner set in Edward Norton's father's house.
  • An episode of "The White Shadow" was in part filmed in Bayside. They used Bayside High School, the Bell Blvd. bridge over the Long Island Railroad and the front of De Rolf's Stationery Store for some dialogue scenes.
  • The Reagans' house in the TV series Blue Bloods is located in Bayside.
  • The opening scene in the movie The Devil's Advocate was filmed at a Pier 25a, a seafood restaurant in Bayside.

Education

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PS 162

Bayside and Douglaston–Little Neck generally have a higher rate of college-educated residents than the rest of the city as of 2018. The majority (52%) of residents age 25 and older have a college education or higher, while 11% have less than a high school education and 37% are high school graduates or have some college education. By contrast, 39% of Queens residents and 43% of city residents have a college education or higher. The percentage of Bayside and Douglaston–Little Neck students excelling in math rose from 70% in 2000 to 88% in 2011, though reading achievement stayed at around 73% during the same time period.

Bayside and Douglaston–Little Neck's rate of elementary school student absenteeism is less than the rest of New York City. In Bayside and Douglaston–Little Neck, 5% of elementary school students missed twenty or more days per school year, the lowest in the city and lower than the citywide average of 20%. Additionally, 95% of high school students in Bayside and Douglaston–Little Neck graduate on time, more than the citywide average of 75%.

Schools

Bayside is home to Queensborough Community College, a branch of the City University of New York (CUNY) system. The college is located on a 37-acre site that was formerly the Oakland Golf Club.

Bayside is part of the New York City Department of Education's district 26, the highest performing school district for grades K-9 in all of New York City. The district includes 20 elementary schools and 5 middle schools. District 25 also serves part of the neighborhood.

Bayside is home to a number of New York City Public Schools:

  • Bayside High School
  • Benjamin N. Cardozo High School
  • PS 203 Oakland Gardens
  • PS 213 Oakland Gardens
  • PS 31 The Bayside School
  • PS 41 The Crocheron School
  • PS 46 The Alley Pond School
  • PS 169
  • PS 159
  • PS 162 (New York) John Golden
  • PS 205 Alexander Graham Bell Elementary School
  • IS 25
  • JHS 194
  • MS 74 Intermediate School Junior High School on Oceania Street
  • MS 158 Marie Curie Middle School
  • MS 294 Bell Academy

Parochial schools include:

  • Lutheran School of Flushing & Bayside (Lutheran school)
  • St. Robert Bellarmine School (Catholic school)
  • Our Lady of the Blessed Sacrament School (Catholic school)
  • Sacred Heart Catholic Academy (Catholic school)

Libraries

The Queens Public Library operates three branches in Bayside:

  • The Bay Terrace branch at 18-36 Bell Boulevard
  • The Bayside branch at 214-20 Northern Boulevard
  • The Windsor Park branch at 79-50 Bell Boulevard

Notable people

  • Peggy Adler (born 1942), author & illustrator of children's books; investigative researcher; Police Commissioner.
  • Rolf Armstrong (1889–1960), painter
  • Adam Leitman Bailey (born 1970), real estate attorney.
  • John Barrymore (1882–1942), actor
  • Jordan Belfort (born 1962), Wall Street stockbroker who was convicted on fraud charges and whose life story was featured in The Wolf of Wall Street
  • Irving Berlin (1888–1989), composer and lyricist
  • Patti Ann Browne (born 1965), anchor and reporter
  • Maria Calegari (born 1957), ballet dancer
  • Michael Chang (born 1972), tennis player
  • Charlie Chaplin (1889–1977), actor
  • Robert Coates (1897–1973), New Yorker writer and coiner of term "abstract expressionism."
  • Evan Conti (born 1993), American-Israeli basketball player in Israel for Hapoel Be'er Sheva B.C., and basketball coach.
  • Jim Corbett (1866–1933), boxer, lived here from 1902 until his death in 1933
  • Joseph Cornell (1903–1972), artist
  • Frank Costello (1891–1973), prominent gangster, known as the "prime minister of the underworld"
  • Jon Daniels (born 1977), General Manager of the Texas Rangers
  • Marie Dressler (1868–1934), Academy Award-winning actress who played "Tugboat Annie"
  • Richard Dreyfuss (born 1947), actor
  • Howard R. Driggs (1873–1963) historian of the Pony Express and the Oregon Trail
  • Perry Farrell (born 1959), frontman of Jane's Addiction
  • W. C. Fields (1880–1946), comedian/actor
  • John T. Flynn (1882–1964), author, journalist, and leader of the America First Committee
  • Danny Frisella (1946–1977) former pitcher for the New York Mets who lived here while playing in 1971 and 1972.
  • Mark Gastineau (born 1956), defensive end who played for the New York Jets.
  • Charles Ghigna (born 1946), poet and children's author known as "Father Goose," born in Bayside
  • Jim Gilligan (born 1946), Lamar University baseball coach with over 1,230 career wins
  • John Golden (1874–1955), Broadway producer, playwright and lyricist
  • Stephen Jay Gould (1941–2002), evolutionary biologist
  • Clay M. Greene (1850-1933), playwright
  • Joseph R. Grismer (1849-1922), actor
  • George Grosz (1893–1959), German-American artist.
  • Scott Ian (born 1963), musician, best known as the rhythm guitarist, backing and additional lead vocalist of Anthrax
  • Judge Thomas Jones (1731–1792), colonial politician
  • Mike Jorgensen (born 1948), New York Mets first baseman
  • Buster Keaton (1895–1966), comedian/actor
  • Robert E. Kramek (1939–2016), U.S. Coast Guard Commandant
  • Helmy Kresa (1904-1991), songwriter and the principal arranger and orchestrator for Irving Berlin.
  • Richard Larson (born 1943), operations researcher and educator, who has been a faculty member at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
  • Steve Lawrence (born 1935) and Eydie Gorme (1928–2013), popular singers
  • Dan Lilker (born 1964), musician
  • Veronica Lueken (1923–1995), Marian visionary
  • Bernard Madoff (born 1938), imprisoned financial figure
  • Arvind Mahankali (born 2000), 2013 Scripps National Spelling Bee champion
  • Walter G. McGahan (1902-1981), lawyer and politician who served in the New York State Senate in the 1950s.
  • Richard Milner, historian of science and a singer who stars in the musical 'Charles Darwin: Live & in Concert.
  • Paul Newman (1925–2008), actor
  • David Nolan (born 1946), historian and author of Fifty Feet in Paradise
  • Anthony Raneri (born 1982), frontman of Bayside
  • Donald L. Pilling (1943–2008), former Vice Chief of Naval Operations.
  • José Reyes (born 1983), former shortstop for the New York Mets
  • Nolan Ryan (born 1947), pitcher, lived here while playing for the New York Mets
  • Tom Seaver (1944–2020), pitcher best known for playing with the New York Mets, who was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame
  • Butch Seewagen (born 1946), former professional tennis player.
  • Abe Simon (1913–1969), boxer and actor
  • Matt Striker (born 1974), WWE wrestler
  • Fred Stone (1873–1959), actor
  • Ken Strong (1906–1979), New York Giants running back and kicker, member of Football Hall of Fame
  • Gloria Swanson (1899–1983), actress
  • Macrae Sykes (c. 1910-1996), former chairman of the American Stock Exchange.
  • Norma Talmadge (1894–1957), actress
  • Clark Terry (1920–2015), Hall of Fame musician
  • Neil Turbin (born 1963), thrash metal vocalist known for being the first full-time vocalist for the band Anthrax and current lead vocalist and songwriter of the heavy metal band DeathRiders.
  • Rudolph Valentino (1895–1926), actor
  • Dave Valle (born 1960), MLB player for the Seattle Mariners, Boston Red Sox, Milwaukee Brewers and the Texas Rangers
  • Reginald VelJohnson, (born 1952), actor
  • Edward Villella (born 1936), ballet dancer
  • Christopher Walken (born 1943), actor
  • Pearl White (1889–1938), actress, star of "The Perils of Pauline"
  • Robert Wilder (1901–1974), author of Flamingo Road and other books and screenplays
  • Karen Yu (born 1992), professional wrestler, also known as "Karen Q" and "Wendy Choo".

See also

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