A photoessay of changes in Long Island City

Every day of my four years of high school at the Academy of American Studies from 2014 to 2018, I would take the E train from the Kew Gardens-Union Turnpike to the Queens Plaza station, and make a short three-minute walk to get to school. During my time at Academy, I stood witness to part of one of the greatest neighborhood transformations in New York City in the last decade.

Exiting the subway

I would get out at the back of the platform, often along with construction workers heading to work on projects in the neighborhood, and would head up the stairs to the mezzanine, go through the high-entry/exit turnstiles, up another set of stairs, and after coming out of the subway at the Queens Plaza station at the corner of Northern Boulevard and 41st Avenue, and would make my way south to 41st Avenue. Shortly after exiting the subway, I would come across the beauty of Dutch Kills Green. Seeing the park, tall buildings, and the sun’s reflection on the elevated subway trains would always make me feel like a good day was starting.

I just recently found out that the park was completed not long before high school began for me. This area used to be a commuter parking lot and a sea of asphalt. My mood would have been very different coming across it. The park was constructed as part of a larger street safety project for Queens Plaza, which added protected bike and pedestrian paths, eliminated street cut-throughs under the elevated structure, and eliminated redundant travel lanes. These improvements and the park attracted employers to the area, made it much safer to walk across Queens Plaza, and provided some much-needed park space in the growing neighborhood. It provided a green haven in the transportation hub of steel, concrete, and asphalt.

In 2009, before I started school, there was only one skyscraper in the area-the Citicorp Building, built in 1989, at Court Square. It was expected to start a wave of development in the area, which did not follow. In 2014, there was another tall building on the south side of Queens Plaza. Over the course of high school, I would regularly see cranes high up, allowing new buildings to rise up higher and higher. By the time I was done with school, it was no longer possible to see the Citicorp Building from here with the completion of other buildings.The landscape transformed more by the time I graduated (2018) and 2021, with the completion of another building.

Around the corner

Turning around the corner onto 41st Avenue, I was flanked by the park on one side, and the old Clock Tower building on the other. Even early in the morning (school for me would start at 7:05 a.m. most days, and I would arrive early-6:40 or so), I would often see people making use of the park. At the end of my time in high school, the sidewalk was narrowed here to accommodate scaffolding for a project that would become the 762-foot tall Sven, the second tallest building in Queens, which would incorporate the existing Clock Tower building.

Further on 41st Avenue

41st Avenue jogs right up ahead, and straight ahead you can see the school building shared by the Academy of American Studies and Newcomers High School. In the first few months of school for me, a new hotel, the Hilton Garden Inn, was still under construction, blocking off the western side of the street. During this brief time period, I would cross the street further north.  The top image from 2007 shows a very different scene-a low-rise building that is now occupied by the hotel. This hotel was one of dozens of new hotels popping up in the Queens Plaza area, offering tourists discounted rates over hotels in Manhattan, while just being a few minutes away from it. This image also shows another building to the right, which was demolished by the time I started high school. During all of high school for me, the eastern side of 41st Avenue was blocked off with plywood fencing. The third image, a month after I graduated, shows the eastern sidewalk on the street and a travel lane closed to allow for the construction of the deep foundation for Sven. Note the truck with construction materials on it-another common sight in the area. By 2021, Sven was nearly finished, but as you can see, there is now also scaffolding on the western side of the street.

Around the bend

This is just a slight change in perspective-around the bend. Notice the tourist with luggage going to/from the hotel in the 2017 image, and the workers surveying in the 2021 image. Sven is in the home-stretch here, and half the street is occupied for the construction of the building. Comparing these images, you see the removal of the older streetscape with low-rise buildings, and the installation of the new streetscape-an urban canyon. You can’t really appreciate how tall Sven is until you start…

Looking up

Sven is so tall that it still gets cut out of the frame. While walking to the school on the western sidewalk, I would pass by an entrance to the Hilton Garden Inn; hearing some music playing in the doorway was always amazing. I would then walk up 41st Avenue, and depending on whether my first class was in the north building, which was shared with Newcomers, or in the south building (an old industrial building), I would head either north on 29th Street or west on 41st Avenue.

View from 29th Street

From 29th Street, we now look south back towards the subway. On the left is the subway’s 29th Street Ventilation Complex, completed in 2001 as part of the construction of the 63rd Street Connector, which connected the 63rd Street “Tunnel to Nowhere” Line with the Queens Boulevard Line. A new public park, being constructed along with Sven, will open in 2023. In the odd triangular plot straight ahead is a coffee place that closed before I started high school. In my last year of high school, it was torn down to allow for the construction of a residential building. One day I was lucky enough to notice a temporary construction regulation street sign lying on the ground due to this construction and the new scaffolding and took it home, as seen in this image:

Getting back to the streetview photos, you can see new buildings popping up in Queens Plaza in the background, with Sven towering above them all in the 2021 view.

View of 41st Avenue

This is a view of the south side of 41st Avenue, with the south building of Academy at the right in an old industrial building not designed to be a school with very narrow hallways and oddly shaped classrooms. To the left of the building, you see a driveway, and to the left of that a printing/copying company. These buildings are all legacies of Long Island City’s industrial past. Two classrooms in the school’s south building (one is supposed to be a conference room) are right next to the driveway, and during some classes you could see people walking in the driveway right outside the class window. A small deli to the left-Green Tea Deli-was frequented by most students (not me), who would sneak in there when crossing 41st Avenue to switch classes between the north and south buildings. Given that a large chunk of its business came from students, it is good to see that it survived the pandemic. In the backdrop, you can also see the growth of the skyline in Queens Plaza. With the recent completion of a new building for the Academy of American Studies, which eliminates the need for it to share the north building with another school, and the need for the south building, do not be surprised if that building and the others on the south side of 41st Avenue get replaced with taller buildings.

New school building

Speaking of new buildings, it felt wrong not to show the construction of the building, which began in earnest after I graduated. The building was constructed on the yard/large parking lot, and is right next to the old north building.

I want to cap things off with an anecdote. The teachers/staff at my high school have stood witness to one of the greatest neighborhood transformations in NYC. A teacher once told me that, on the tragic day of 9/11/2001, there was a straight view from the fourth floor of the school to the Twin Towers. Now there is an entire skyline in the way.

Urban transformation at this level is rare, even in New York City. The area has transformed from an industrial area to the city’s fourth central business district, and there is more growth to come. It was very exciting for me to attend school in such a rapidly transforming area. I wish this transformation was possible everywhere across the city. In response to the Twitter thread this is based off of, someone who had lived in the area in the 1990s said that the area was completely unrecognizable now. While a lot has changed, the backbones of the area-the streets, the elevated train lines, and the old Clock Tower are still here.

A final note

I will close off with these images. In August 2018, a few months after I graduated, the subway entrance I had used every day was closed to allow it to be widened as part of the Sven project, in anticipation of greater ridership. The rebuilt entrance opened in 2020. The former driveway on the side of the entrance has been replaced by a sidewalk, improving pedestrian flow.

Credits:

Photos courtesy of Google Maps StreetView (I have my own photos from high school-I just need to find them).