Ridgewood Queens
Get off the Wyckoff station in Bushwick Brooklyn and walk one block to your east and you are in Ridgewood. Pieter Claesen Wyckoff did something like that in 1637. Although he was from Holland he was German speaking And so began the settlement of the area by German speaking Europeans Today Ridgewood remains both an area with a strong history and relationship with the German heritage community as well as an area where immigrants from around the world make their first American home.
Much of the information in this entry comes from;
The Illustrated History of Greater Ridgewood
a book By GEORGE SCHUBEL Editor of the Ridgewood Times Published by Ridgewood Times Printing and Publishing Company,1913
(any thing in the gray book is a direct cut and paste.
Like the wonderful Topsy in “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” Greater Ridgewood seems “just to have grown up” in a nor- mal and steady way for many years, without any authoritative record of the origin of its name.
The walk begins at
1) Venditti Square- The restaurant Caribe Star stands in the middle. The square is named for a detective who was shot in the square in 1986 while on a stake out. The restaurant and the store La Botanica Abete Oshun, are both indicative of the changing demographics of the community.
2) The Liberty Department Store across the street at 54-00 Myrtle Ave was once the RKO, an old Vaudeville theater. http://cinematreasures.org/theaters/4621
3) Clemens Triangle. - The World War I War Memorial https://www.nycgovparks.org/parks/myrtle-avenue-clemens-triangle/monuments/1340 Take a good long look at the different representatives of the three branches of the military. There are always more things to notice.
4) The Rite-Aid Across from Clemens Square. 55-60 Myrtle Ave. It is an old bank repurposed as a drugstore, Go inside, its worth a look around.
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| Inside the bank turned Rite Aid |
There is IS 77
19) Intermediate School 77
Private instruction could, of course, also be had at
home by long-haired, spectacled dominies, who traveled about throughout the
neighborhood in those early days and volunteered to meet the demands of
education for a shilling or so a day and board.
Trade and the Evergreen Board of Trade, worked tirelessly in the matterfor almost two years, calling mass meetings, agitating through the civic boardsand newspapers, and bringing to the attention of the city authorities in otherways, the absolute need of the school, with the result that an appropriationwas granted and Public School No. 77 on Covert Avenue, between Center andGeorge Streets, was built. It is to be hoped that the children who now enjoythe advantages of this magnificent building will never forget the labors of thosewho made Public School No. 77 possible.The school is considered one of the finest in the city. It is a four-stbrick, stone and terra cotta building ofthe collegiate gothic style of architecture, and stands about where the dancingplatform of Deckelmann’s Ridge-wood Park was located.
5) Ridgewood Bank- the decoration on the door, from the bank. The bank is filled with interesting decoration on the facade, on the door and everywhere you look.
“From a broad civic point of view,” the article continued, “a local National Bank founded on a sound and trustworthy basis, will lend credit to the community; it will put the section on a higher footing: it will increase land values in the vicinity, add to population, in- crease business and, above all, promote home rule.
6) Norma's Cafe- 59-02 Catalpa Avenue-
Coffee shop with community roots.
https://www.normascornershoppe.com/7) Morscher Pork Store 58-44 Catalpa Avenue
Hand painted sign with illustration from Grimm's Fairy Tale It translates into something like Table Spread thyself
8) St. Matthias 58-15 Catalpa Ave.
The ornate church with its "wedding cake" style architecture has long been a center of the Polish community. There is a statue of Pope John Paul the second out in front.
-http://www.saintmatthiaschurch.net/saintmatthiaschurch/CALENDAR.html
After passing the church turn right on Onderdonk and you are now right in the middle of the historic district.
Historic Ridgewood
The Matthew Model Flats.
http://www.brownstoner.com/history/queenswalk-the-plan-for-ridgewood-part-2/
The story of the steady growth and development of what is now known as Greater Ridgewood is like the story of a modern fairy tale. Within the incredible short space of half a score of years, hundreds upon hundreds of houses have been built, making the development and progress of our section at once the wonder and admiration of the Greater City. The upbuilding has all been done in such a normal and quiet way that no one outside the immediate zone of development was aware of the transformation that was taking place. From an insignificant hamlet of worked-out farms and scattered homes on the Queens side, the section became transformed into a wide-awake, energetic community and, like modern Aladdins, the people of our section, by their industry, thrift and civic pride, have caused it to become, to all apparent purposes, a city within a city. With this remarkable change has come about a change, of course, in the life and activities of the section; old farms and old landmarks are disappearing, and in their stead blocks upon blocks of residential houses are appearing, as if by magic, from the ground, and newcomers are swarming into them as fast as they are ready for occupancy.
9) Ridgewood Library 20-12 Madison Street
Queens http://www.queenslibrary.org/ridgewood
It was the first library constructed in Queens by the city and not industrialist-turned-philanthropist Andrew Carnegie.
This Branch, known as the Ridgewood Branch, was opened on March 18th, 1911. The only place available was a store on the corner of Greene and Covert Avenues, too small to accommodate the people who wished to use the library. In consequence, it was at first largely used by the children, who crowded in, excluding the grown people. There was a registration of 972 persons from March 18th to 31st, including children. More than 2,000 volumes were circulated in the same time, of which 72 per cent, were children’s books. Of the persons using the reading room, 94 per cent, were children.
11) Romanian Orthodox Church
The building was once the fanciest Mansion in town
12) 66-45 Forest Ave- wood frame house 1884
This house predates the building of the Matthews Model Flats
13) IS 93 note the gargoyles on the facades
14)Gottscheer Hall 657 Fairview Avenue
http://gottscheerhall.com/about-us
Once beer halls, were community centers where folk who lived in small apartments gathered to pass the evenings, plan social functions and support the communities in Europe they left behind. This is one of the few examples left. Gottscheer is a region that located in Slovenia, but was once part of the Austrian Empire. If you click on the history on the menu from the website linked above you will learn a whole lot about Gotschee, if not a whole about the hall in Ridgewood. And you could book your next affair there if you care to.
15) Linden Street
There is a lot of variation in the decorations of the facades if the rows and rows of Matthew Flats.
Only this block has faces carved in the stone above the windows.
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| note the face in the carvings above the flats on Linden Street |
http://www.saloysius.org/
The convent located halfway down the side street dates back 125 years.
17) Stockholm Street
http://forgotten-ny.com/2008/04/stockholm-syndrome-ridgewoods-landmarked-block/
There are 32 houses built on this street between 1907 and 1910. The street has landmark status. And it is literally paved with yellow brick stone.
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18) Linden Hill Cemetery
Ferenc Molnar, the writer, whose short story, Roger and Hammerstein based the musical Carousel is buried in this cemetery. Walking around the paths affords a beautiful view of the distant Manhattan skyline
Ridgewood
See map at end of the post
