HISTORY TOPICS: PARKS
FAGAN SQUARE (OR MIDDLETOWN SHOOLHOUSE PARK)
To the northwest, the early eighteenth century hamlet of Middletown still
exists in a cluster of old homes on Newtown Road and 46th Street. In May
1721, one of the first schools in Queens was built by the Hallet, Moore,
Skillman, and Bragaw families at the intersection of the 1652 Hallet's
Road (to Hell Gate) and the 1640 Ridge Road (to Hunter's Point.)
British and Hessian troops marched by the school during the Revolution.
Around 1820, a bag containing thousands of dollars in gold coins was found
in its walls. They were hidden by schoolmaster John Kearns during that
trouble time.
Later the school was sold, and was used as a kitchen in one of the old
houses. The name Middletown, older than Astoria, remained in use until
the twentieth century. Some of the nearby homes may be 200 years old.
To the north, William Cullen Bryant High School, built in the 1920s,
is named for author William Cullen Bryant (1794-1878), American poet and
newspaper editor. A lawyer from Massachusetts until 1825, when he went
to New York City. By that time he was already known as a poet and critic.
He became associate editor of the New York Evening Post in 1826, and from
1829 to his death he was part owner and editor in chief. He was a defender
of human rights and an advocate of free trade, abolition of slavery, and
other reforms. He wrote critical essays stressing the values of simplicity,
original imagination, and morality.
This is the second school with this name, the first being the old Long
Island City High School near Queens Plaza. Famous alumni include Ethel
Merman. The trees planted around it were a memorial to the fallen heroes
of World War I from the community.
The school occupies the former Riker Estate, Oak Hill.
To the northeast,the Woodside Houses, built in the 1950s, sit on the
border of Long Island City in what once as a field used for semi-pro baseball
and traveling circuses. It was called Queens Park.
To the south, the Mathews Model Flats, across Broadway, are some of the
most innovative housing ever attempted in New York City. Simple and cheap
to build, sturdy in construction, and profitable to own, they are a joy
to live in. One of the most successful concepts conceived, they are the
model for the three story six family buildings that fill Ridgewood, Woodside,
and Elmhurst. Models of these buildings, along with copies of Grand Central
Station, and the Williamsburg Bridge were sent to the Panama-Pacific Exhibition
in San Francisco in 1912 as examples of New York City’s genius in
the early twentieth century. This block, the largest concentration of
this housing in the city, was built in sections from 1915 to 1923. It
was featured in the movie ‘Ragtime.’
48th Street was known as 18th Avenue and earlier, Baldwin Street.
