Corona, Queens facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Corona
Neighborhood of Queens
The intersection of Corona Avenue, 108th Street, and 52nd Avenue
Country	United States
State	New York
City	New York City
County/Borough	Queens
Community District	Queens 3, Queens 4
Founded	1854
Named for	Crown Building Company
Population  (2010)
• Total	109,695
	Includes North Corona and South Corona
Race/Ethnicity
• Hispanic	73.6%
• Asian	10.0%
• Black	9.5%
• White	5.3%
• Other/Multiracial	1.6%
Economics
Time zone	UTC−5 (Eastern)
• Summer (DST)	UTC−4 (EDT)
ZIP Code	11368
Area codes	718, 347, 929, and 917

Corona is a neighborhood in the borough of Queens in New York City. It is bordered by Flushing and Flushing Meadows–Corona Park to the east, Jackson Heights to the west, Forest Hills and Rego Park to the south, Elmhurst to the southwest, and East Elmhurst to the north. Corona's main thoroughfares include Corona Avenue, Roosevelt Avenue, Northern Boulevard, Junction Boulevard, and 108th Street.

Corona has a multicultural population with a Latino majority, and is the site of historic African American and Italian American communities. After World War II, the majority of the neighborhood's residents were mostly Italian, German, Irish and of other European ancestries. Corona also has a significant Chinese population.

Corona is mostly part of Queens Community District 4. The section north of Roosevelt Avenue, known as North Corona, is the northern section of Corona and is in Community District 3. Corona is patrolled by the 110th and 115th Precincts of the New York City Police Department.

History

The intersection of Corona Avenue, 108th Street, and 52nd Avenue

Firehouse in Corona

The area was originally known as West Flushing, but real estate developer Thomas Waite Howard, who became the first postmaster in 1872, petitioned to have the post office name changed to Corona in 1870, suggesting that it was the "crown of Queens County." Another theory is that the name Corona derives from the crown used as an emblem by the Crown Building Company, which is alleged to have developed the area; the Italian immigrants who moved into the new housing stock referred to the neighborhood by the Italian or Spanish word for "crown", or "corona". Either way, the name is a foreign translation of the word "crown."

Corona was a late 19th-century residential development in the northeastern corner of the old Town of Newtown. Real estate speculators from New York started the community in 1854, the same year that the New York and Flushing Railroad began service to the area largely to serve a newly opened race course. It was at the Fashion Race Course in 1858 that the first games of baseball to charge admission took place. The games, which took place between the All Stars of Brooklyn and the All Stars of New York, are commonly believed to be the first all star baseball games and in essence the birthplace of professional baseball. A trophy baseball from this tournament recently sold for nearly half a million US dollars.

During the second half of the 1940s through the 1960s, many legendary African American musicians, civil rights leaders and athletes moved to the neighborhood. In the last half of the 20th century, Corona saw dramatic ethnic successions. In the 1950s, what was predominantly an Italian American and African American neighborhood began to give way to an influx of Dominicans. In the late 1990s, Corona saw a new wave of immigrants from Latin America. The area north of Roosevelt Avenue contained the heart of the historic African American community. The intersection of 108th Street and Corona Avenue is the historic center of the Italian American community, sometimes referred to as Corona Heights. The majority Hispanic community now consists of Dominicans, Colombians, Ecuadorians, Salvadorans, Guatemalans, Bolivians, Peruvians, Mexicans, Venezuelans, and Chileans. There are also Asian Americans (Chinese, Indians, Koreans, Filipinos, and Japanese) as well as Italian Americans and African Americans.

Structures

Our Lady of Sorrows, 37th Avenue

Brazilian Adventist Church

Corona has several private schools including School of the Transfiguration. Public schools include the High School for Arts and Business and P.S. 92.

There are many churches representing diverse denominations. Antioch Baptist Church at 103rd Street and Northern Boulevard is a prominent African American congregation dating to 1936 with a membership of 700. Our Lady of Sorrows Roman Catholic Church at 104th Street and 37th Avenue was built in 1899 largely out of red brick with a nearby convent of the same period. Today it conducts most of its masses in Spanish and attracts large weekend crowds. The Congregation Tifereth Israel was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2002.

Dorie Miller Residential Cooperative, built in 1952, comprises six buildings, containing 300 apartments, with 1,300 rooms in total. The cooperative is named after Doris "Dorie" Miller, a U.S. Naval hero at Pearl Harbor and the first African American recipient of the Navy Cross. Among its original residents were jazz greats Nat Adderley & Jimmy Heath; Kenneth and Corien Drew, publishers of Queens' first African-American newspaper, The Corona East Elmhurst News, Thelma E. Harris founder of Aburi Press and prominent Queens Judge Henry A, Slaughter. Corona was also the childhood home of Marie Maynard Daly. A biochemist, Daly was the first African American woman to earn a Ph.D. in Chemistry. Daly studied the effects of cholesterol on the mechanics of the heart, the effects of sugars and other nutrients on the health of arteries, and the breakdown of the circulatory system as a result of advanced age or hypertension; this scientist subsequently studied how proteins are produced and organized in the cell and the composition and metabolism of components of the cell nucleus.

The Louis Armstrong House attracts visitors to the neighborhood and preserves the legacy of musician Louis Armstrong, one of Corona's most prominent historical residents. It was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1976.

Demographics

According to the 2010 Census, the total population of Corona was about 110,000. Corona is overwhelmingly Hispanic with all other demographics (Asian, non-Hispanic black, and non-Hispanic white) being definitively below the borough average.

Corona is divided into two neighborhood tabulation areas, Corona (south of Roosevelt Avenue) and North Corona (north of Roosevelt Avenue), which collectively comprise the population of the greater neighborhood.

Corona

Based on data from the 2010 United States Census, the population of Corona south of Roosevelt Avenue was 57,658, a change of 5,576 (9.7%) from the 52,082 counted in 2000. Covering an area of 462.74 acres (187.26 ha), the neighborhood had a population density of 124.6 inhabitants per acre (79,700/sq mi; 30,800/km²).

The racial makeup of the neighborhood was 8.4% (4,851) White, 13.6% (7,845) Black, 0.2% (130) Native American, 12.7% (7,346) Asian, 0% (9) Pacific Islander, 0.5% (280) from other races, and 1.3% (723) from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 63.3% (36,474) of the population.

The entirety of Community Board 4, which comprises Corona and Elmhurst, had 135,972 inhabitants as of NYC Health's 2018 Community Health Profile, with an average life expectancy of 85.4 years. This is higher than the median life expectancy of 81.2 for all New York City neighborhoods. Most inhabitants are middle-aged adults and youth: 17% are between the ages of 0–17, 39% between 25–44, and 24% between 45–64. The ratio of college-aged and elderly residents was lower, at 8% and 12% respectively.

As of 2017, the median household income in Community Board 4 was $51,992. In 2018, an estimated 27% of Corona and Elmhurst residents lived in poverty, compared to 19% in all of Queens and 20% in all of New York City. One in fourteen residents (7%) 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 62% in Corona and Elmhurst, higher than the boroughwide and citywide rates of 53% and 51% respectively. Based on this calculation, as of 2018^[update], Corona and Elmhurst are considered to be high-income relative to the rest of the city and not gentrifying.

As according to the 2020 census data from New York City Department of City Planning, Corona had 51,500 Hispanic residents, there were between 10,000 to 19,999 Asian residents, and 5,000 to 9,000 Black residents, meanwhile the White residents were less than 5000.

North Corona

Based on data from the 2010 United States Census, the population of North Corona was 52,037, a change of 4,881 (9.4%) from the 47,156 counted in 2000. Covering an area of 413.24 acres (167.23 ha), the neighborhood had a population density of 125.9 inhabitants per acre (80,600/sq mi; 31,100/km²).

The racial makeup of the neighborhood was 1.8% (929) White, 4.9% (2,566) African American, 0.1% (67) Native American, 6.9% (3,597) Asian, 0% (5) Pacific Islander, 0.7% (351) from other races, and 0.5% (259) from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 85.1% (44,263) of the population.

The 2020 census data from New York City Department of City Planning showed North Corona having between 30,000 to 39,999 Hispanic residents, meanwhile each the White, Black, and Asian residents were all each less than 5000 residents.

Historic archives

Corona/East Elmhurst also houses one of the most extensive collections of African American art and literature in the Langston Hughes Community Library and Cultural Center, which serves Queens with reference and circulating collections, totaling approximately 30,000 volumes of materials written about or relating to black culture. The Black Heritage Reference Center of Queens County includes books, periodicals, theses and dissertations, VHS videos, cassettes and CDs, photographs, posters, prints, paintings, and sculpture. Cultural arts programs are scheduled through the Center. Meeting space is available to community organizations by application. Special features of the Center include:

• The Schomburg Clippings File, an extensive microfiche collection of periodicals, magazine clippings, typescripts, broadsides, pamphlets, programs, book reviews, menus and ephemera of all kinds.
• The UMI Thesis and Dissertation Collection consists of more than 1,000 volumes of doctoral and master dissertations concerning the African and African-American diasporas.
• The Adele Cohen Music Collection contains most of America's foremost black publications on microfilm. The papers cover 15 states beginning in 1893, and are updated each year with current issues.
• The Black Heritage Video Collection documents the history and culture of Africans and African-Americans on tape, and in all subject areas including literature, biography, social science, fine arts.

Transportation

The New York City Subway's IRT Flushing Line (7 <7> trains) runs through the neighborhood with stops at Mets–Willets Point, 111th Street, 103rd Street–Corona Plaza, and Junction Boulevard. The Q23, Q38, Q48, Q58, Q66, Q72, Q88 buses also serve the neighborhood.

In popular culture

Lemon Ice King, an eatery in Corona

• Books about Corona's history and present include Roger Sanjek's The Future of Us All and Steven Gregory's Black Corona.
• Chapter 6 of Andrew Morton's biography Madonna describes American pop singer Madonna's brief stint as a Corona resident in the late 1970s and early 80s.
• F. Scott Fitzgerald referred to the Flushing Meadows-Corona Park dumps as the "valley of ashes" in his novel The Great Gatsby.
• Paul Simon referred to a fictional character as "Rosie, the queen of Corona" in his 1972 song Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard.
• Lemon Ice King of Corona, at 108th Street and Corona Avenue, appears in the opening credits of the TV show King of Queens.

Education

Corona and Elmhurst generally have a lower ratio of college-educated residents than the rest of the city as of 2018^[update]. While 28% of residents age 25 and older have a college education or higher, 30% have less than a high school education and 42% 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 Corona and Elmhurst students excelling in math rose from 36% in 2000 to 66% in 2011, and reading achievement rose from 42% to 49% during the same time period.

Corona and Elmhurst's rate of elementary school student absenteeism is less than the rest of New York City. In Corona and Elmhurst, 11% of elementary school students missed twenty or more days per school year, lower than the citywide average of 20%. Additionally, 81% of high school students in Corona and Elmhurst graduate on time, more than the citywide average of 75%.

Schools

PS 92 Harry T Stewart Sr

The following public elementary schools are located in Corona and serves grades K-5 unless otherwise indicated:

• PS 14 Fairview
• PS 16 the Nancy Debenedittis School
• PS 19 Marino Jeantet
• PS 28 Thomas Emanuel Early Childhood Center (grades PK-2)
• PS 92 Harry T Stewart Sr (grades PK-5)
• PS 143 Louis Armstrong
• Pioneer Academy

The following public middle and high schools are located in Corona:

• IS 61 Leonardo Da Vinci (grades 6-8)
• High School for Arts and Business (grades 9-12)
• Corona Arts & Sciences Academy (grades 6-8)

Library

The Queens Public Library contains three branches in Corona:

• The Corona branch, located at 38-23 104th Street
• The Langston Hughes branch, located at 100-01 Northern Boulevard
• The LeFrak City branch, located at 98-30 57th Avenue

Notable residents

Notable current and former residents of Corona include:

See also

In Spanish: Corona (Queens) para niños