Living History: An Interview with JAMES DRISCOLL, author of FLUSHING: 1880---1935

KIRPAL GORDON: I first saw your book, “Flushing: 1880---1935,” at the Voekler Orth Museum, Bird Sanctuary and Victorian Garden when George Wallace spoke there last month on Walt Whitman.  As you may know, Jim, Giant Steps Press has many connections to Flushing, so please tell our readers about you, your involvement with the museum as well as the Queens Historical Society and how the book, published by Arcadia Press, came to be.

JAMES DRISCOLL: I taught social studies in the New York Public Schools for over twenty years and have lived in Flushing all my life. I started doing research at the Queens Historical Society about twenty years ago. I am also on the board of the Voelker Orth Museum. About seven years ago their executive director, Catherine Abrams, asked me to do a book about Flushing for Arcadia.

KIRPAL GORDON: I was knocked out to read of the Flushing Remonstrance and the part Flushing played in the Underground Railroad during the Civil War. 

JAMES DRISCOLL: Flushing has a wonderful history. Way back in December of 1657 the people of Flushing defied the Governor of New Amsterdam, Peter Stuyvesant, and allowed all men and women to worship God as they saw fit. The incident that brought this about was Stuyvesant's persecution of the Quakers. Although they were not Quakers, the people of Flushing issued a statement called the Flushing Remonstrance which may have been the first statement in America defending this basic right. Stuyvesant did not give in. He continued to persecute the Quakers and the people who wrote the document. About two years later he heard that John Bowne allowed his wife who was a converted Quaker to use the Bowne House as a place to hold their meetings. Stuyvesant found out about it and ordered Bowne to leave the colony. Bowne went to Holland and complained about Stuyvesant. The directors of the Dutch West India Company agree with Bowne and ordered Stuyvesant to change his policies. Almost two hundred years later the Quakers in Flushing, we believe, supported the Underground Railroad and helped slaves flee to Canada.

KIRPAL GORDON: I found Chapter Two, “Flushing’s Horticultural Heritage,” particularly interesting, especially your remark that many of the trees in Central Park in Manhattan and Prospect Park in Brooklyn originally came from nurseries here. 

JAMES DRISCOLL: The first commercial nursery was started in North America was started in 1737 by members of the Prince Family. According to the Journals of Frederick Olmstead, Olmstead picked out trees in Europe for Central Park. His buying partner was Samuel Bowne Parsons, one of the owners of the Parsons Nursery in Flushing. That was in the 1850s.

KIRPAL GORDON: Both the historical chapters and the geographical chapters on Broadway, Main Street, Murray Hill, Waldheim and Kissena Park really come to life thanks to the paintings, sketches, maps, photos and postcards you have managed to collect and comment upon.  What was it like researching this project?

JAMES DRISCOLL:  I used Vincent Seyfried's  postcards for about 80 percent of the images. The maps I Used came from the Queens Historical 

Society collection. The Queens Historical Society now owns many of his cards.

KIRPAL GORDON: In your last chapter, “Changes in the 1920s,” you really sent me down Memory Lane with that postcard of the magnificent interior of the old RKO on Main Street and Northern Boulevard.  Will that ever be restored?  

JAMES DRISCOLL: The RKO Keiths was landmarked in its entirety but the late Donald Manes had landmark status withdrawn from the auditorium. The best we can hope for is that the building is restored preserving the sections that are still landmarked: the ticket lobby and the grand foyer.

KIRPAL GORDON: In an earlier blog post, I asked Jason Antos, author of Whitestone, about curbing overdevelopment, and he said, “That is up to the people, our local politicians and zoning laws. The laws have to be enforced and perhaps changed so that Whitestone can retain some of its small town feel.”  Do you think this is also true for Flushing?  What would you recommend that citizens do to help preserve Flushing’s unique history?

 

JAMES DRISCOLL: Whitestone and Bayside are more residential so they have a different set of problems than Flushing. What has helped in Flushing has

been the landmark law. Some of the buildings we wanted to save, such as the 

Quaker Meeting House and the Kingsland Home, have been declared 

landmarks. Unfortunately the Landmarks law only dates from the late 1960s 

and many of the buildings we wanted to save, such as the Prince Homestead, 

have been torn down.   

KIRPAL GORDON: How can folks purchase your book and stay in touch
with what you are doing?

JAMES DRISCOLL: Currently I am working on the Underground Railroad on Duffield Street in Brooklyn. To buy a copy of “Flushing,” call the Voelker Orth House at 718-359-6227 or visit online at www.vomuseum.org or in person at 149-19 38 Avenue, Flushing, NY, 11354.

An Interview with Whitestone's Author Jason Antos

KIRPAL GORDON: As you know, Giant Steps Press has many connections to north Queens.  While researching the old neighborhood on the internet, I came across Whitestone, your pictorial history of the neighborhood in a brief 127 pages, and was knocked out by the maps, paintings, sketches, post cards, documents, photographs and your astute commentary which delivers an imagistic memory lane experience for a local like me and a cautionary tale to all New Yorkers about the risks of overdevelopment.  Told in your informed but impassioned voice, it's a testimony to our unique hamlet sitting alongside the East River between the Bronx-Whitestone and Throg's Neck Bridges.  Because you argue so well for the value of history, it seems fitting that you dedicate the volume to your grandmother, Evelyn Kaye, who is seen in a photograph with Joe Dimaggio.  How did the project come about?

JASON ANTOS: Since childhood, I have been a great admirer of history. For years I had been writing short pieces for local papers and for University publications. As a lifelong resident of Whitestone, I remember exploring different areas of the town when I was growing up. I would walk down by the abandoned CYO and hang out in the remains of the Hammerstein House. I knew I had something. There was definitely a story to tell. 

KIRPAL GORDON: Divided into seven chapters that open with Dutch settlers and the Matinecock tribe, you take us through the arrival of the British Empire, Francis Lewis and the Revolutionary War period, Governor de Witt Clinton's homestead in an 1854 photograph, Walt Whitman's stay and the Civil War, the arrival of the Long Island Rail Road in 1869, the population explosion that began with the opening of the Queensboro Bridge in 1909, the neighborhood's brief stint as a seaside resort which brought celebrities and more development and the continuing impact of immigration throughout the two world wars and into the 21st century.  That's an amazing amount of dedicated research.  Who helped you find all that out?

JASON ANTOS: Since Whitestone was my first book, I had to become a detective and figure out one step at a time where to find material. I began at the Queens Historical Society which led me to the Bayside Historical Society. From there I went to the Queens Library Central branch to Long Island Division (now called The Archives). The Queens Library has an endless amount of information on Queens. The best part is that it is all open to the public!

KIRPAL GORDON: Among the most telling photographs in the book is a shot of Harvey Firestone's mansion before it was torn down to accommodate the Cryder House.  The sense that the neighborhood's actual history has gotten buried alongside such development is unmistakable.  Ironically, just down the road sits the Hammerstein mansion.  Turned into the highly regarded eatery Ripples on the Water, I see from the cover of your book that the original mansion has been rebuilt on the old grounds.  What do you make of these two tales?

JASON ANTOS: It is all about fate. The Hammerstein home was privately owned until Le Havre was built in the early 1950s. Originally known as the Levitt House Apartments, the complex acquired it as their club house. Firestone's house was owned by Mrs. Michele who operated a bed and breakfast. She sold the property for the building of Cryder House. Hammerstein's home was luck enough to be purchased by a group who wanted to turn it into a catering hall. This allowed the building to remain long enough to be recognized as National Landmark.

KIRPAL GORDON: In the last section, the construction of the two suspension bridges to the Bronx really captures the sense of a leafy, once bucolic neighborhood in transition.  How do we keep Whitestone green while limiting the growing McMansion-ization of its homes?

JASON ANTOS: That is up to the people, our local politicians and zoning laws. The laws have to be enforced and perhaps changed so that Whitestone can retain some of its small town feel.

KIRPAL GORDON: What most impressed me in your telling is Whitestone's unique heritage as a place of tolerance.  You point out that the Dutch and the Native Americans coexisted peacefully, which is indeed a rarity in the colonial era. In addition, the Flushing Remonstrance, the New World's first legislation insuring freedom of religious choice, was signed in 1657.  Ever since, Whitestone has been home to a wide range of religions: Quaker, Dutch Reform, Methodist, Episcopal, Roman Catholic, Greek and Russian Orthodox, Jewish, Lutheran and of late people from Korea and Far Eastern Asia.  What factors play into this open-mindedness?

JASON ANTOS: I think when a neighborhood is multicultural and tolerant, that atmosphere becomes evident to all people. This creates a sense of calm and attracts diversity. When one group moves out the other stays and grows creating a continuous cycle. 

KIRPAL GORDON: Beyond your present duties as a reporter on the neighborhood for the Queens Gazette, you have penned three other books on Queens for Arcadia.  Tell us more about those projects.

JASON ANTOS: After the success of Whitestone: Images of America (2006), I followed with Shea Stadium: Images of Baseball (2007), Queens: Then and Now (2009) and Flushing: Then & Now (2010).

Jason Antos is a reporter for the Queens Gazette.  To peruse or purchase Whitestone, see http://www.amazon.com/Whitestone-Images-America-Jason-Antos/dp/0738546283.