The borough of Queens Queens is the largest and most culturally diverse borough of New York City. Come with us on a tour of the galleries of Long Island City, the restaurants of Astoria, and the sporting events of Flushing!
During the colonial period in America, Queens was a sparsely populated and rural area. The first settlements of Dutch and English immigrants were established between 1635 and 1655 on the lands of today's Flushing, Elmhurst, and Jamaica neighborhoods. Following the English taking over the colony and renaming it New York, Long Island, and with it present-day Queens, was renamed Yorkshire in 1664.
The borough of Queens was created in 1898 and incorporated into New York City. Electrification of the Long Island Rail Road (1908), as well as the opening of the Queensboro Bridge (1909), the railroad tunnels under the East River (1910), and the Steinway Tunnel (1915), provided transportation from Queens to Manhattan.
By 1915, Queens was almost completely connected to the New York City subway system. Due to its good accessibility and the increased use of automobiles, the population doubled within the 1920s and exceeded one million people for the first time in 1930.
The borough of Queens hosted two World's Fairs. The first New York World's Fair in 1939 resulted in the opening of LaGuardia Airport and Flushing Meadows Park in Northern Queens. The second World's Fair was held in 1964, also in Flushing Meadows Park. The stainless steel globe Unisphere, the Observatory Towers, and the New York State Pavilion are left from it.
Queens has many interesting and diverse places to offer. Start your tour of the borough in these five neighborhoods:
Astoria is located directly on the East River in Northwestern Queens and is one of the most famous and livable neighborhoods in the borough. The home of jazz musician Louis Armstrong and actress Whoopi Goldberg offers fancy stores, interesting museums, a colorful culinary scene, and beautiful Astoria Park.
The Long Island City neighborhood just South of Astoria is known for having the best views in Queens. So it's no wonder that numerous rooftop bars have settled here, from which you have a magnificent view of the Manhattan skyline. The vibrant neighborhood will also captivate you with interesting stores and extravagant museums and galleries.
Rockaway Beach is a great place to live! The favorite beach of New Yorkers not only features a beautiful promenade, but it is also the namesake for an entire residential district directly on the shore of the Atlantic. Here, you'll find a mix of apartment buildings, hotels, restaurants, cafes, stores, and amusement parks. Rockaway's 11 km of white sandy beach is also a popular meeting place for beachgoers, surfers, skaters, and other sports enthusiasts.
Downtown Flushing in Northern Queens is a true melting pot of people, cultures, and languages. Its population is made up of a large East, South, and Southeast Asian community, as well as numerous immigrants from Latin America and Eastern Europe. Accordingly, there is a wide variety of small, international stores that you will find everywhere in Downtown Flushing. In your free time, you can visit cultural highlights such as the Queens Botanical Garden, the Queens Zoo, and the Science Museum.
In picturesque Forest Hills, you'll experience the typical suburban atmosphere in the middle of a metropolis. Forest Hills is characterized by tree-lined streets and numerous green spaces but also has a lively business district, excellent restaurants, and many entertainment options – a great place to combine the amenities of city life with a quiet residential neighborhood.
Have you planned a tour of the borough of Queens? These are the top three sights you shouldn't miss!
These three must-see attractions in Queens:
The giant stainless steel globe Unisphere is the biggest eye-catcher in Flushing Meadows-Corona Park. The sculpture was designed by Gilmore D. Clarke for the 1964 New York World's Fair as a way to celebrate the dawn of the space age.
The spherical representation of the earth has a diameter of 37 m, is 43 m high, and balances on a 6.1 m high, three-legged base. Attached to the globe are 500 steel pieces depicting the continents. The three steel rings around the globe represent the first satellites in Earth’s orbit.
Unisphere stands in the middle of a basin with a diameter of 94 m. 48 pairs of fountain heads are arranged in a circle around the base of the globe, bringing the fountain to life.
The New York State Pavilion was built in 1962 for the 1964 New York World's Fair in Flushing Meadows-Corona Park. The historic World's Fair Pavilion was designed by civil engineer Lev Zetlin and architects Richard Foster and Philip Johnson.
It consists of a total of three components made of steel and reinforced concrete: the Tent of Tomorrow, whose pillars held what was then the world's largest suspended roof, the three Observation Towers that are up to 69 m high, and the Theaterama, which today houses the Queens Theatre.
Even from Manhattan, you can see the iconic Pepsi Cola Sign in the Long Island City neighborhood of Queens. The 15m-high neon sign, which depicts a bottle and the words Pepsi-Cola, was installed in 1940 at the former PepsiCo bottling plant.
Since the factory closed in 2003, the Pepsi Cola Sign has stood at nearby Gantry Plaza State Park on the banks of the East River. In 2016, it was listed by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission.
You can play sports and relax in these parks in the borough of Queens:
With a total area of 3.63 km2, Flushing Meadows-Corona Park is the largest green space in the borough of Queens and the fourth largest park in New York City. Often simply referred to as Flushing Meadows, the recreational area thus has a larger area even than the famous Central Park in Manhattan!
The idea to create Flushing Meadows-Corona Park existed as early as the 1920s but was not implemented until 1939 as part of the New York World's Fair. Later, in 1964, the park was again the site of a World's Fair. The most important attractions of the park also originate from these events: the steel globe Unisphere, the New York State Pavilion, the Queens Theatre, the New York Hall of Science, the Queens Museum, and the Queens Zoo.
Sports fans will enjoy the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center, which hosts the annual US Open, as well as baseball highlights at Citi Field, where the New York Mets play their home games. A stroll through Flushing Meadows Park will also take you to the Flushing River and two large lakes, Meadow Lake and Willow Lake.
The peaceful Astoria Park stretches on the East Bank of Hell Gate, a bottleneck of the East River near Wards Island. Since October 1913, the green space, which is named after the nearby neighborhood of Astoria, has served New Yorkers as a recreational area offering a variety of sporting activities.
Astoria Park features a soccer field, a running track, a skate park as well as tennis, basketball, and bocce courts. You can also enjoy the recreation facility Astoria Park Pool and Play Center, in which you can cool off in the pool where America's top aquatic athletes competed for those much-coveted spots on the Olympic team from the 1930s to the 1960s.
The largest inner-city beach in the USA runs for almost 11 km along the Atlantic Ocean on the Rockaway Peninsula at the Southern end of the borough of Queens. Rockaway Beach and the adjacent Rockaway Boardwalk have numerous recreational facilities to sweeten your summer in New York. Work out at the skate parks, the roller field hockey rink, the basketball and handball courts, or simply spend a relaxing day at the beach!
Art lovers shouldn't miss these museums and galleries in Queens:
The Museum Contemporary Art Center P.S.1, better known as MoMA PS1, was founded in 1976 by Alanna Heiss under the name P.S.1 in the premises of an empty school. Since 2000, the art house has been a branch of the famous MoMA in Manhattan and has even more experimental and progressive exhibits to offer than its famous big sister. If you're interested in works by young and emerging artists, MoMA PS1 in Queens is the place to be!
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The American Museum of the Moving Image is a must-see for true film buffs! The media museum, located in a building of the historic Astoria Studios, includes over 125,000 exhibits from the fields of cinema and television.
At the John Bowne House, you can travel back to the founding days of the borough of Queens. The oldest house in Queens was built in 1661 by settler John Bowne in what is now Flushing. It has been listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places since 1977 and can be visited every Wednesday during a guided tour.
Shopping, nightlife, sporting events: there's always something going on in the Queens borough of New York City. These are our tips for getting out and about:
Are you looking for some vacation souvenirs in the borough of Queens? Then check out these stores and markets.
If you want to go on a bar and club tour in the Queens borough, here are some recommendations for you.
To experience typical US sports in Queens, you can go to see a baseball match of the New York Mets. The MLB team has played its home games at City Field near Flushing Meadows Park since 2009. From late August to early September, the borough of Queens also hosts the US Open Tennis Championships, one of the four most important tennis tournaments of the year.
Both airports in New York City, John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK) and LaGuardia Airport, are located in Queens. Furthermore, New York's largest borough is home to two of the most important hubs for rail traffic: Jamaica Station and Long Island City Station.
If you are traveling with a rental car in the USA, you can get from Manhattan or the Bronx to Queens via numerous bridges and tunnels, e.g., the famous Queensboro Bridge and Triborough Bridge. The fastest transportation routes are the Long Island Expressway, the Grand Central Parkway, and the Belt Parkway.
In the borough itself, you can easily get around with numerous bus lines MTA Regional Bus Operations, or with the New York Metro, which is represented by 81 stations on seven main lines in Queens.
You probably didn't know these 10 interesting facts about the borough of Queens:
After your tour of Queens, there are four other interesting boroughs of New York City waiting for you! Sightseeing in Manhattan, hip-hop in the Bronx, wandering the galleries of Brooklyn, or taking a ferry ride to Staten Island – what do you want to do first?