Astoria is a neighborhood in northwestern Queens, with a population of approximately 225,000 people. The neighborhood includes the part of Long Island City north of Broadway, east of the East River, west of around 51st Street, and south of the Long Island Sound. It was developed from 1839 by Stephen A. Halsey, a fur merchant who petitioned the state legislature to name it for the prominent fur trader John Jacob Astor, the richest man in America by 1840. During the 1840s and 1850s, it grew slowly inland from the ferry landing at the corner of Astoria Boulevard (previously known as Hallett’s Cove). Wealthy New Yorkers built mansions on 12th and 14th streets and on 27th Avenue.
The German United Cabinet Workers brought four farms in 1869 between 35th and 50th streets and created a German town. In the following year, Schuetzen Park was built at Broadway and Steinway Street, which was a landmark for half a century. Additionally, a large piece of land bordering Steinway Street from Astoria Boulevard to the East River was bought by the piano maker William Steinway, who set up factories along the shore and a village to their south. On May 4, 1870, Astoria, Hunter’s Point, Steinway and Ravenswood combined to form Long Island City. Dangerous reefs in Hell’s Gate were destroyed through dynamite in 1876 and 1885 at the order of the federal government. Thousands of houses were built during the late nineteenth century and the early twentieth century. Many six- family apartment buildings and housing projects were constructed during the 1920s and 1930s.
The shore of the East River transformed into a park in 1913, and the first rapid transit line, the Astoria Line, opened on 31st Street on February 1, 1917. The subway extended service along Steinway Street and Broadway on August 19, 1933, and new connections to Manhattan and the Bronx were added through the Triborough Bridge, which opened on July 11, 1936.
After the Second World War, the Astoria population was prominently Italian. Greek residents rapidly increased in number after 1965: one third of all Greeks who moved to New York City in the 1980s settled in Astoria, and by the mid 1990s, Greeks made up slightly less than half of Astoria’s population. St. Demetrious, one of the eleven Greek Orthodox churches in the area, is one of the largest Orthodox churches outside Greece. Greek immigrants who settled in the neighborhood were aided by the Hellenic Americans Neighborhood Action Committee, a locally based social services agency. Other ethnic groups also settled in the area, including Colombians, Chinese, Guyanese, and Koreans, and in smaller numbers Ecuadorians, Romanians, Indians, Filipinos, and Dominicans.
Today, Astoria is one of the most vibrant, diverse, colorful and neighborhoods in New York City. Although still known as “Greektown,” its diversity is seen by the many ethnic groups living in the neighborhood and the countless cultures represented by the food in the area.
