19th century College Point was named for
St. Paul's College, an Episcopalian seminary founded in 1835 by the Rev.
William Augustus Muhlenberg. The college closed around 1850, but the name remained. Former names include Lawrence's Neck, Tew's Neck, Flammersberg, and Strattonsport. The original European settler of this area was Captain William Lawrence. He was also the largest
landholder of the original incorporators of the
Town of Flushing, now in Queens. He arrived in America on the sailing ship
Planter in the 1630s. Lawrence married the oldest daughter of Richard "Bull Rider" Smith, who founded
Smithtown on
Long Island. He and his wife had a son, William Jr., who married the Richard Smiths' youngest granddaughter. In 1854 the
German-American industrialist
Conrad Poppenhusen arrived; he was already a prosperous manufacturer in
Brooklyn of
hard rubber goods and expanded his operation to this small farming community. College Point became a
factory town primarily for his workers, most of them also German immigrants, and the tycoon became a
philanthropist, contributing to churches, libraries, and the
Poppenhusen Institute, an educational beacon of College Point. Poppenhusen is responsible for the first free
kindergarten in America. He connected College Point to Flushing by the
Whitestone Branch of the
Flushing and North Side Railroad. A monument on College Point Boulevard, one of the main streets in College Point, stands testament to Poppenhusen.
Early 20th century College Point became a center for breweries and day trip
resorts, and in the 1930s shifted towards the manufacturing of airplane parts. Until the mid-20th century, the partially infilled Mill Creek separated College Point from the rest of Queens. College Point was a peninsula connected to the rest of Queens by four roads: College Point Boulevard, Linden Place, 20th Avenue, and 14th Avenue; all except the last crossed Mill Creek.
Flushing Airport opened in the neighborhood in 1927. Its main clientele were private airplanes and blimps. Whenever northwest or southwest winds rose above 35 miles per hour, the runways would not operate. Lacking proper lighting, the runway also never allowed for nighttime usage. In 1926, approximately 100 single-family and two-family houses were built on the Graham estate. In 1938, the estate of Anna Schlesinger, near Ninth Avenue and 119th Street, was sold to the Daniel Corners Realty Corporation. The land had previously been part of the Poppenhusen estate. The architect of the homes was Alwin Cassens Jr. The proposal languished for several years before being revived in 1967. By the 1970s, the
Adventure's Inn Amusement Park was being operated on part of the complex. The city
condemned the amusement park site in 1973 due to nuisance complaints. The next year, the industrial park was founded on a site of . The complex was later rebranded the College Point Corporate Park (CPCP) because there had been few industrial tenants there. Flushing Airport was decommissioned in 1984. Much of Linden Place in College Point was also closed due to frequent flooding near the airport, which had been built on a wetland atop Mill Creek. There were several proposals to redevelop the airport site, none of which were successful. One plan in 1986 called for the site to be redeveloped as a large heliport, though the project ultimately failed seven years later. Several large development projects were constructed around the airport site in the late 1980s. These buildings included three projects inside the CPCP campus, as well as another building at Linden Place and 31st Road. Floor space in these buildings rented out at an average of , a relatively expensive rate at the time. This was due to its proximity to major transportation connections such as the
LaGuardia Airport and the
Bronx–Whitestone Bridge, as well as the lack of parking in nearby downtown
Flushing. By 1994, the CPCP had over 100 companies. The CPCP proposed to develop a strip mall with large "mega-stores" on 20th Avenue, though this idea was initially opposed by local residents. The strip mall was developed by
The Related Companies it contains a
Waldbaum's,
Target,
BJ's Wholesale Club, and other stores. When the strip mall opened, there were plans to reopen Linden Place. Also in 1997, the
Queens Historical Society bestowed a "Queensmark" award on College Point, in hopes of encouraging historical preservation of local landmark architecture.
21st century There was an increase in residential development in the 1990s and 2000s; a
New York Times article in March 2002 stated that 450 residential units had been developed in the previous 14 months. There were proposals to redevelop the Flushing Airport site as a wholesalers' complex in the early 2000s, but these were protested by College Point residents. The northern shoreline of College Point, a former oil lagoon, was designated a federal
Superfund cleanup site in 2010. Groundbreaking for a new
New York City Police Academy at College Point occurred in December 2009, and Phase One opened in December 2015. After several delays, Linden Place was finally renovated in the 2010s so that it would be several feet above the Flushing Airport Wetlands. The first portion of Linden Place reopened in 2015, and the remaining section was set to reopen in 2022. ==Land use==