Station Square

Station Square is one of the most unique sites within New York, more closely resembling a medieval town square than any of the stations sprinkled throughout the city. Naturally, as a deeply historical site (which is so often the case in New York City), in 1996, structural deterioration was evident at the station, and the State Historic Preservation Office determined that the station met the criteria for inclusion in the National Register of Historic Places. A campaign run by Friends of Station Square and the MTA/LIRR budgeted 5 million dollars to restore the station to its original design, which was completed in 1999. Thus today, like the rest of the Forest Hills Gardens, Station Square is thoughtfully crafted with the intention of being the commercial center of the Gardens, and a means of transportation between the picturesque gardens and the metropolis of Manhattan. Designed by Grosvenor Atturbury and Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr. , the area features German medieval style buildings, connected by pedestrian bridges, and a double staircase leading to an elevated embankment where the Long Island Railroad runs. With a public space surrounded by shops, apartments, and even an inn, Station Square is the nucleus of the Forest Hills Gardens, and has been the site of numerous social activities since its inception some 100 years ago. In the early years, there were annual Fourth of July celebrations in Station Square, that featured “elaborate patriotic programs, parades, games and even a costume ball. ” These celebrations culminated in a huge Fourth of July gathering in 1917, during which Teddy Roosevelt gave his famed “100% American” speech. Despite the fact that the former president was overwhelmed with about 500 Fourth of July invitations, on July 30, 1817, the Forest Hills Gardens Bulletin ran the headline “COLONEL ROOSEVELT ACCEPTS.”

The red-brick streets of Station Square were filled to the brim by a crowd of 2,000 excited patriots, and with the recent entrance into World War I, the town center was appropriately decorated with red, white and blue; the double staircase of the LIRR was flanked by American flags, and portraits of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln and current president Woodrow Wilson accompanied Roosevelt throughout his speech. Roosevelt abhorred Wilson’s isolationist stance, and declared “We showed a reluctance passing the bounds of ordinary timidity,”. In order to succeed, he insisted that “We can have no 50-50 allegiance in this country…Either a man is an American and nothing else, or he is not an American at all.” Throughout his impassioned speech, he explained his philosophy against “hyphenated Americans”:

“There is no room in this country for hyphenated Americanism. When I refer to hyphenated Americans, I do not refer to naturalized Americans. Some of the very best Americans I have ever known were naturalized Americans, Americans born abroad. But a hyphenated American is not an American at all.”

“This is just as true of the man who puts “native” before the hyphen as of the man who puts German or Irish or English or French before the hyphen. Americanism is a matter of the spirit and of the soul. Our allegiance must be purely to the United States. We must unsparingly condemn any man who holds any other allegiance.”

“But if he is heartily and singly loyal to this Republic, then no matter where he was born, he is just as good an American as any one else.”

“The one absolutely certain way of bringing this nation to ruin, of preventing all possibility of its continuing to be a nation at all, would be to permit it to become a tangle of squabbling nationalities, an intricate knot of German-Americans, Irish-Americans, English- Americans, French-Americans, Scandinavian- Americans, or Italian-Americans, each preserving its separate nationality, each at heart feeling more sympathy with Europeans of that nationality than with the other citizens of the American Republic.”

“The men who do not become Americans and nothing else are hyphenated Americans; and there ought to be no room for them in this country. The man who calls himself an American citizen and who yet shows by his actions that he is primarily the citizen of a foreign land, plays a thoroughly mischievous part in the life of our body politic. He has no place here; and the sooner he returns to the land to which he feels his real heart-allegiance, the better it will be for every good American.”

While Roosevelt’s concern for patriotism is understandable, he unfortunately was unable to gauge the essence of New York City. New York is defined by its diversity and its connections and references to places abroad– it would be nothing without hyphens. Now more than ever, New York is a global city, and were it not for its citizens’ foreign devotions, it could not hope to maintain its distinct character. Roosevelt might be disappointed to know that nearly 100 years after he gave his “100% American” speech, an Italian-American, a Puerto Rican-Italian-American, and a Greek-Dutch-Dominican-American passed by the very station at which his speech was delivered; a testament to the “New Yorkification” of Forest Hills Gardens

Sources:

“History of Station Square.” History of Station Square. Friends of Station Square, Inc., n.d. Web. 14 May                       2014.

Hirshon, Nicholas. Forest Hills. Charleston, SC: Arcadia Pub., 2013. Print.

Gray, Christopher. “Streetscapes/Station Square, Forest Hills, Queens;A Medieval Design That Works in              Modern Times.” The New York Times. The New York Times, 20 Apr. 1996. Web. 14 May 2014.

Roosevelt, Theodore. “Unification Speech.” New York, Forest Hills. 4 July 1917. Speech.