Rego Park, Queens

Rego Park is a diverse neighborhood in the central portion of the New York City borough of Queens. It is bordered to the north by Elmhurst and Corona, the east and south by Forest Hills and the west by Middle Village. The neighborhood is part of Queens Community Board 6.

History

A swath of farmland until the early 20th century, the area that came to be called Rego Park was once populated by Dutch & German farmers who sold their produce in Manhattan. The name "Rego Park" came from the REal GOod Construction Company, which began development of the area in the mid 1920's, starting with 525 eight-room houses costing $8,000 each, stores were built in 1926 on Queens Boulevard and 63rd Drive and apartment buildings were built in 1927–28.

Like its neighbor, Forest Hills, Rego Park has long had a significant Jewish population most of which are from Bukharian, Iranian, and Russian ancestors, with a number of synagogues and kosher restaurants. Cartoonist Art Spiegelman grew up in Rego Park and made it the setting for significant scenes involving his aged father in Maus, his graphic novel about the Holocaust. Many Holocaust survivors, including Spiegelman and his parents, settled there after 1945. Even as many Jews have departed for further-flung suburbs over the years, they have been replaced by Jewish immigrants from the former Soviet Union, especially from Central Asia. Though these immigrants largely trace their ethnic roots back to Bukharian Jewish culture, the effect of life in the Soviet Union on the population has led Rego Park to have a Russian feel with many signs in Russian Cyrillic. Most of the Bukharian Jewish immigrants in the neighborhood come from what is now Uzbekistan, and it is possible to find excellent, authentic Uzbek food in many Rego Park restaurants. Immigrant populations from Albania, Israel, Romania, Iran, Colombia and South Korea are also well-represented. The area also has a fast-growing Chinese population. Rego Park also was home to a large Japanese expatriate community in the 1960s, who resided in LeFrak City. However, as conditions in that complex deteriorated, they then moved on to Flushing, Queens, Westchester County and Fort Lee, New Jersey.

Many houses in Rego Park are in the colonial and Tudor style with slate roofs. This is especially so in an area called the Crescents, the most expensive real estate in Rego Park. Named because of the neighborhood's semicircular shaped streets emanating in a concentric pattern from Alderton Street. Real estate values are also high due to easy access to Manhattan via the 63rd Drive subway stop, served by the R, G, V, and E (during off-hours) lines.

The CBS sitcom The King of Queens is set in Rego Park, and sometimes shows clips of the area.

Community Groups/Civic Associations

The "Rego Park Group" is a local community group that provides residents and merchants of Rego Park with opportunities for community service, socializing, and activism, improving the quality of life in the neighborhood. They partner with the other organizations to benefit the community.

The Parents' Association of P.S. 139Q, which is located on 63^rd Drive, is a very active group of parents who work together to not only improve the academics and quality of life of students at the school, but also to improve programs and facilities, which ultimately benefit the entire neighborhood.

Public transportation

The Long Island Rail Road overpass between Austin and Alderton Streets hosted the Rego Park station until its abandonment in 1962. Though physically part of the railroad "Main Line" heading out to Jamaica, the station operated as part of the Rockaway Beach Branch. The station was later dismantled, and little can be discerned of its existence now save for the flattened clearing beside the tracks.

The IND Queens Boulevard Line of the New York City Subway has a local station at 63rd Drive and Queens Boulevard, dating from the mid-1930s. It is, at various times of the day and week, serviced by the E, G, R, and V trains.

A number of Express Buses also run between the neighborhood and locations in Manhattan.

Commerce

Along Queens Boulevard, Rego Park is home to some of Queens' most popular shopping destinations, including the Rego Park Center (formerly Alexander's department store), a retail complex with large Sears, Bed Bath & Beyond, Circuit City, Marshalls, and Old Navy locations. A new shopping center being built across 62nd Drive from Rego Park Center will house a Home Depot, Kohl's, and Century 21 department store; this center is scheduled to open in 2009. The Queens Center mall, the borough's largest, lies just to the west in Elmhurst.

Shopping Districts with many smaller stores, bakeries, pharmacies and restaurants can be found along 108th Street and 63rd Drive.

Rego Park's boundaries include Queens Boulevard, the Long Island Expressway, Woodhaven Boulevard, and Yellowstone Boulevard.

Education

Public schools

Rego Park's public schools, as are the public schools in all of New York City, are operated by the New York City Department of Education.

The following elementary schools serve Rego Park:

• P.S. 139 (Rego Park School, grades K-6); P.S. 139 Parents' Association
• P.S. 174 (William Sidney Mount School, grades K-6)
• P.S. 175 (the Lynn Gross Discovery School, grades preK-5)
• P.S. 206 (the Horace Harding School, grades K-6)
• P.S. 220 (Edward Mandel School, grades preK-5)

All areas in Rego Park are zoned to J.H.S. 157 Stephen A. Halsey (6 - 9), in Rego Park, or J.H.S. 190 Russell Sage (7-9) in Forest Hills. Rego Park is not zoned to a high school as all New York City high schools get students by application. Forest Hills High School is located in nearby Forest Hills.

Private schools

Our Lady of the Angelus, a PK-8 private school operated by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn, is located in Rego Park. Resurrection-Ascension School, another PK-8 private school operated by the Diocese of Brooklyn, is also located in Rego Park. Our Saviour Lutheran School is the third parochial school in the area.

Private institutions include Rego Park Day Care, The Rego Park Jewish Center (est. 1939), and The Jewish Institute of Queens (a.k.a. the Queens Gymnasia).

63rd Drive

The main business thoroughfare of Rego Park is 63rd Drive. The main section extends from Woodhaven Boulevard in the south, to Queens Boulevard in the north, with the central business district of Rego Park nestled between Alderton Street (just south of the Long Island Rail Road overpass), and Queens Boulevard. The stretch south of Alderton is entirely residential. The business district is anchored by The Rego Park School PS 139Q, an elementary school dating from 1928 and Our Saviour Lutheran Church established in 1926 which right across Wetherole Street from PS 139Q. The business district is criss-crossed by major Rego Park side streets Saunders, Booth, Wetherole and Austin. Most of the businesses lining 63rd Drive are the original single story "Taxpayers" dating from the 1930s.

Across Queens Boulevard to the north, 63rd Drive becomes 63rd Road, and its business district continues another three blocks. One block to the east another 63rd Drive extends from Queens Boulevard, but this spur is a minor, narrow, one way residential street. It was common practice when the numbering system for streets and avenues evolved, for the street names to change from one side of Queens Boulevard to the other.

Rego Park Mall II development project

Tentatively dubbed “Rego Park Mall II” by developer Vornado Realty Trust, the site across the street from Sears will feature four floors of shops, a multilevel parking garage and possibly 450 new apartments, according to New York City Planning Commission records. An additional one block parcel owned by Alexander’s may include another of retail space, according to an Oct. 30 filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Plans for two high rise apartments are still preliminary, but would likely include a 15 story tower at the corner of 97th Street and 62nd Drive, and a 20 story tower at the corner of Junction Boulevard and 62nd Drive, city records show. The design and style of the new high rises would match those of nearby complexes, according to a land use proposal submitted by Alexander’s, Inc., and approved by the City Planning Commission last year. No further details are available on possible apartment rents, amenities or unique features—aside from two planned penthouses topping both the tentative structure and the structure. The ground level shopping complex, meanwhile, will add an array of new retail options to the Sears, Bed Bath & Beyond, Circuit City, Marshall’s and Old Navy across the street. According to SEC filings, property owners have entered into longterm lease agreements with the Home Depot home-improvement store chain and two major clothing retailers and may search for more tenants to occupy the three attached buildings of retail space.

Construction on the new development has already started as of December, 2006 with an anticipated completion date of sometime in late 2009. It is believed that the retail portion of the project, including parking for approx. 1,330 spaces and a 2-level pedestrian and vehicular bridge overpass over 62nd Drive (connecting to the existing Rego Park Mall I complex) will be completed and open for use prior to the expected commencement and completion of the residential portion of the project.

Rego Park Mall 2 will be home to stores such as The Home Depot, Century 21 Department Store,and Kohl's.

The development of Rego Park Mall 2 will further increase the already staggering real estate values in Rego Park.

63rd Drive Fire of 1972

The short block of 63rd Drive between Austin Street and the railroad overpass was the scene one February morning in 1972, of a wild fire that claimed a row of stores and the neighborhood library. The blistering fire reportedly started in the second store on the block from Austin, a shoe store, and quickly spread with the gusting winds to neighboring stores, including a television repair shop, toy store, pet shop and a pioneering Indian restaurant, and finally, the library, where row upon row of oily books and wooden shelves sent flames high into the sky and up the embankment of the railroad. Firefighters scrambled to keep the windswept flames from reaching an apartment house behind the stores, a new Key Food supermarket across Austin Street, or the Shell gas station just across the drive. The library caved in before flames could damage the electrical wires lining the railroad. A new library eventually opened across the street (on the former site of the Shell gas station). After the fire, until the new library was built, the community was served by a mobile "Bookmobile" library which parked under the LIRR tracks on 63rd Drive.

Notability

Rego Park was the setting of the 1980s sitcom Dear John, which centered around the fictional "Rego Park Community Center."

The American comedy series The King of Queens is also set in Rego Park.

Rego Park is also home to one of American television's most unforgettable characters, Archie Bunker from the 1970s sitcom All in the Family. The Bunkers were said to live at 704 Hauser Street, a fictitious address that was supposed to be located in Flushing, but doesn't exist anywhere in New York. However, the house shown in the credits is located at 89-70 Cooper Avenue in Rego Park.

Famous residents

Notable current and former residents of Rego Park include:

• Wang Changyuan, Chinese musician and composer
• Steve Hofstetter - Comedian/Radio Personality.
• Malika Kalantarova, Popular Central Asian dancer, "People's Artist of USSR"
• Fatima Kuinova, Famous Soviet Shashmakom singer, "Merited Artist of the USSR"
• Robert Lipsyte, sports journalist.
• Tommy Ramone (1952-), drummer for the Ramones 1974-1978
• Dave Rubinstein ("Dave Insurgent"), singer for the punk band Reagan Youth
• Bobby Schayer, drummer for L.A. punk band Bad Religion 1991-2001
• Art Spiegelman, author of Maus.

References