Residents

Kew Gardens was designed as a “prime residential community.” Most of these communities restricted their population to white, Anglo-Saxon Protestants, excluding Italians and Jews. Kew Gardens, however, was open to Jews, but did have its share of ethnic restrictions.¹

Immigrant History

A lot of Jewish refugees from Germany migrated to Kew Gardens in the 1930s, fleeing the Nazis in the years before World War II. ²

After the passage of the Cellar-Hart Act in 1965, more immigrants from China, Afghanistan, the Soviet Union, Columbia, Korea and Israel started to appear. ³

As of the 1970 Census, which is the oldest Census for which information has been displayed on the census tracts for the 2010 Census, Kew Gardens had about 20,094 people, of whom 94.2% or about 18,937 were White, with 3.7% or about 738 being African-American. About 5,720 people were foreign-born, of which 1,341 were from Germany, 337 were from the USSR, 253 from Italy, 84 from China, 310 from SW Asia (the Middle East), 553 from Poland, and 530 from Other America, defined as not Mexico, U.S., Canada or Cuba. It is important to recognize that immigrants, whether legal or not, are less likely to complete the census, distorting the counts. These totals indicate that the neighbor still largely consisted of Jews from Eastern Europe. As of this Census, Kew Gardens was not a diverse community. ⁴

As of 1981, Kew Gardens shared the highest Korean concentration in NYC with Flushing. Koreans came there for economic or educational opportunity, as an escape from overcrowding in their home countries, or to seek freedom. They played a large role in the neighborhood, taking up various small businesses. ⁵ The influx of Koreans also spawned the Central Presbyterian, an immigrant church under Reverend Chang Eui Ahn that popped up in 1980. It was rented space in an American church, which raised the rent over the first five years, and hiked the rent 100% in the sixth. In 1985 the congregation relocated to what had previously been a funeral home and created their own church. ⁶

Iranian Jews followed suit in the 1970s as part of a larger initial wave of immigrants leaving Communist lives. Around 2,500 were spurred to leave after the Shah of Iran lost power in 1979. It was presumed that, unlike the Russian Jews that had decided to populate nearby neighborhoods like Richmond Hill and Forest Hills, the Iranians were likely to return home because they had migrated under certain arrangements and plenty had not changed their immigration statuses. Clearly, this did not turn out to be true. As early as 1982, the Iranian congregation of Shaare Tovah built a house of worship, with the help of the Ashkenazi Jews already living in the community.⁷⁸

The 1990s saw a heavy increase in Eastern Europeans, primarily from the Czech Republic, Russia and the Baltic countries. Guyanese and Asian Indians from neighboring Richmond Hill also moved in. ⁹

The 2000 Census cited a relatively high Chinese concentration compared to other Queens neighborhoods. ¹⁰

According to the 2013-2017 American Community Survey, the population of Kew Gardens increased to 24,161. When comparing the racial makeup from this survey to that from the 1970 Census, it is clear that the neighborhood has become more diverse. Kew Gardens is now only 58.2% white (14,056 people), as opposed to 94.2%. The African-American population inched up to 6.0% (1,450 people). The major change is the influx of people from South America and Asia. 26% of the population of Kew Gardens is now Hispanic, or 6,277 people, of which the biggest groups are from Columbia (1,014 people), Puerto Rico (1,177 people), the Dominican Republic (862 people) and Mexico (825 people). 19.1% of the population are Asian alone, or 4,617 people, of whom the largest groups are from China (1,096 people), from India (1,525 people) and from Pakistan (774 people).¹¹

Crew Gardens

Kew Gardens is home to a lot of airline personnel because the neighborhood is located centrally between LaGuardia Airport and JFK Airport. As a result, many local residents call it Crew Gardens. In addition, JetBlue used to be headquartered in the neighborhood. Some homes in the neighborhood, including one of the two homes next to mine, is a crashpad for these employees. ¹²

These workers come from other states but have their schedules based out of New York and regularly work on-call. You can often see them, in their uniforms, rolling their luggage to the curb, where airline employee shuttles, such as Golden Touch pick them up. The neighborhood has been used by airline personnel since the 1960s, when commercial jet travel took off. ¹³