Early history The name "Fresh Meadows" dates back to before the American Revolution. Fresh Meadows was part of the Town of Flushing, which had large areas of
sal meadows, such as the original "Flushing Meadows". The wetlands in the hilly ground south and east of the village of Flushing, however, were fed by freshwater springs, and thus were "fresh meadows". Fresh Meadows Road (which today follows the same route under a number of names, including Fresh Meadows Lane and part of Utopia Parkway) traversed the area, and served as the route from the landing place at Whitestone to the village of Jamaica. In
The Evening Post in 1805, farm owner James Smith advertised the sale of his 60-acre farm "on the road to Fresh Meadows and Flushing". During the
American Revolution, British troops marched through the area. General Arnold drilled his troops in the area, on the current location of M.S. 216. In order to help move military supplies from British ships using the Whitestone Landing, a new road was built to connect the Fresh Meadows Road with
Hempstead. This road began at what is now the intersection of
Utopia Parkway and 73rd Avenue, near a local landmark along the Fresh Meadows Road: the remnants of a large tree that had burned after being struck by lightning that was known as the "Black Stump". The road took its name from this feature, and was called "Black Stump Road". During the 19th century, a farming community known as Black Stump developed in the area. The Black Stump School was built before 1871. The school was expanded in 1900 and a second story was added in 1905. The remains of the Black Stump School were demolished in 1941 in order to build present-day Utopia Playground, located at 73rd Avenue and Utopia Parkway. For several years, the woods of Black Stump were rumored to be haunted because people heard strange sounds coming from the woods. In 1908, the mysterious sounds were discovered to be coming from a recluse who lived in a small hut and sang
Irish folk songs at night. During the late 1880s, Parsons Nurseries was importing 10,000
Japanese maples into the United States each year with help from Swiss immigrant John R. Trumpy. Samuel Parsons' children, Samuel Bowne Parsons and Robert Bowne Parsons, later took over running the nursery. In 1886, Samuel Bowne Parsons helped renew the plantations of
Central Park while serving as Superintendent of Parks. Samuel Bowne Parsons gave the lake on his property the name "kissena", which he thought was the
Chippewa word for "it is cold". Kissena Lake was initially used as a
mill pond. Parsons later used the lake for
ice cutting, where surface ice from lakes and rivers is collected and stored in ice houses and use or sale as a cooling method before mechanical refrigeration was available. Just east of the lake was a water pumping station. By 1898, Samuel Bowne Parsons' son, George H. Parsons, had taken over as superintendent of Parsons Nurseries. Later that year, George was found in the lavatory by his father; he had died of heart failure. and Samuel Bowne Parsons died in 1906. Two real estate developers, John W. Paris and Edward McDougal, bought most of the Parsons land, then built large houses as part of the "Kissena Park" residential development. A tract of Parsons' exotic specimens was preserved in the modern-day park and is now the Historic Grove.
Fresh Meadow Country Club In 1921,
Park Slope resident Benjamin C. Ribman and others from the Unity Club of Brooklyn were looking to build a golf course. The group chose the intersection of Fresh Meadow Lane and Nassau Boulevard as the site, because the land was suitable for golf and roads provided accessibility to other parts of the city.
A. W. Tillinghast designed the golf course. After the
Brooklyn Daily Eagle realized that there was already a golf course name Woodland in Boston, the founders decided to name the course Fresh Meadow Country Club. At the golf course's dedication, the first round of golf was played by former
NCAA golf champion Jesse Sweetser and club professional Willie Anderson. Nine days later, the clubhouse burned to the ground from an explosion of a boiler. The
PGA Championship was held at Fresh Meadow Country Club in
1930, and the
U.S. Open in
1932. In 1937, the golf course hosted a charity game between
John Montague,
Babe Ruth,
Babe Didrikson, and Sylvania Annenberg, a game that was watched by 10,000 fans, some of whom rushed the golf course and left Babe Ruth's shirt in tatters.
Holliswood Homes Around 1939, Paul Roth bought of land that had been part of the Klein farm and the Boggs farm. The land was bounded by 73rd Avenue, 185th Street, Union Turnpike, and 188th Street. The 204 homes were designed by architect Arthur E. Allen. The Gross-Morton Company had also made an offer to buy the land, but it was not accepted. Construction cost the New York Life Insurance Company $35million (equivalent to $million in )). New York Life Insurance Company donated land on 69th Avenue at 195th Street to the city so it could build a school. In 1947, the New York City Board of Education awarded contracts of over $1.8million (equivalent to $million in ) to construct P.S. 26, an elementary school with a capacity of 1,494 students. The school, P.S. 26, also known as the Rufus King School, opened in February 1949. P.S. 173 opened soon afterwards, in September 1949, at 69th Avenue and Fresh Meadows Lane. The first twenty families moved into the Fresh Meadows Housing Development on September 2, 1947. As a result of
housing segregation, New York Life Insurance Company did not allow black individuals to live in the Fresh Meadows Housing Development. It was also built to house local
World War II veterans. The complex and its eponymous shopping center were among the first in the United States designed primarily to accommodate
automobile traffic rather than pedestrian traffic. Apartment rents were between $74 and $108 per month, which included gas and electricity. The construction of the final residential building, a 20-story apartment building at 67th Avenue and 192nd Street, was completed and ready for occupancy in May 1962. At the time the building's construction ended, 11,000 people were living in the Fresh Meadows Housing Development. The shopping center was planned to include a
Bloomingdale's, a movie theater, Canterbury Shops clothing store, Mary Lewis, Ormond Hosiery Shop,
Woolworth's, Miles Shows,
Buster Brown children's shoes, Selby women's shoes,
Food Fair, a
Horn & Hardart automat, Whelan's Drugs,
Fanny Farmer, Union News, Womrath's Book Shop, Barrett Nephews dry cleaners, and Harris Brothers delicatessen, a
Bank of Manhattan, a
Jamaica Savings Bank, and a
post office. Century Meadows Theatre opened November 1949. In 1973, Bloomingdale's added a three-level extension to the store, on what had been a pedestrian plaza. This service was eventually kept, and it was expanded in 1970 with branches running further east into Queens. The combined QM1/QM1A service eventually became among the busiest privately operated express routes in the city by the 2000s. In 1972,
Harry B. Helmsley and the
John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation partnered to buy the Fresh Meadows housing and retail complex for $53million from the New York Life Insurance Company. The MacArthur Foundation acquired the property outright in 1995. Two months after the Bloomingdale's store was sold in August 1991,
Kmart signed a 31-year lease for the space. Kmart closed the store in 2003, as part of an effort to close underperforming stores. Kmart sold the lease to the Fresh Meadows location and four other locations to
Kohl's for $16million in 2003. The Kohl's in Fresh Meadows was the first Kohl's location in New York City.
Klein Farm Fresh Meadows was home to Klein Farm, the last surviving commercial
farm in New York City, located on 73rd Avenue between 194th and 195th Streets. Adam Klein, from Brooklyn, bought the Voorhis farm in the 1890s. Klein bought the 200-acre plot of land for $18 per acre. The family sold portions of the land over time, but kept the two acres surrounding the farm house. His son, Charles Klein, was born on the farm and operated it after his father's death in 1954 at age 89. The farm's last day open was November 21, 2001. Many in the community were opposed to the proposed sale, including the Fresh Meadows Tenants Association, the West Cunningham Park Civic Association, the Flushing Heights Civic Association, the Hillcrest Estates Civic Association, the Utopia Estates Civic Association, and the Utopia Park Civic Association. Huang had also admitted to failing to report a spill of 10,000 gallons of heating oil from an underground tank into the soil beneath the RKO Keith's Theater in 1999. and they instead agreed to sell the land to a
Westchester-based developer, Steven Judelson. At the time, Judelson said he had not decided what to do with the land. The proposal was not approved, and a day-care center was opened instead. The sale did not go through. In 2012, Huang was convicted of
embezzling over $3 million of federal funds that were intended to pay for children's lunches at Huang's Red Apple Child Development Centers. It was built by Mortimer M. Reznick, and George Miller was the architect. Reznick also built residential developments called Williams Homes in Flushing and Bonnie Meadows in
New Rochelle, and a commercial development in
Yonkers. Meadowlark Gardens Tenant Association was organized on June 3, 1977, in order to advocate for the tenants' rights. ==Subsections==