Jamaica, Queens

Jamaica is a neighborhood in the borough of Queens in New York City. It was settled as a town by the English under Dutch rule in 1656 in New Netherland. It is one of the major predominantly African American neighborhoods in the borough of Queens. It has a substantial concentration of West Indian immigrants, Indians, Arabs, Puerto Ricans, Dominicans as well as many long-established African American families. The neighborhood of Jamaica is completely unrelated to the Caribbean nation of Jamaica (although Jamaican immigrants do live in the area) ; the name similarity is a coincidence. The English, who took it over in 1664, named the area "Jameco," for the Jameco (or Yamecah) Native Americans, who resided on the northern shores of Jamaica Bay, and whose name means "beaver" in Algonquian languages.^[1]

Jamaica is the location of most courthouses and other administrative buildings for the County of Queens; however, it is not the location of Queens Borough Hall and Queens Criminal Court, both of which are located in the adjacent neighborhood of Kew Gardens (Kew Gardens is a neighborhood once located in the larger town of Jamaica before Queens became part of New York City). Jamaica Center, the area around Jamaica Avenue and 165th Street, is a major commercial center, as well as the home of the Central Library of the Queens Borough Public Library.

History

Jamaica Avenue was an ancient trail for tribes from as far away as the Ohio River and the Great Lakes, coming to trade skins and furs for wampum.^[2] It was in 1655 that the first settlers paid the Native Americans with two guns, a coat, and some powder and lead, for the land lying between the old trail and "Beaver Pond," later, Baisley Pond. Dutch Director-General Peter Stuyvesant dubbed the area "Rustdorp" in granting the 1656 patent. The English, who took it over in 1664, and renamed it "Jameco," for the Jameco (or Yamecah) Native Americans.

Jamaica became part of the county of Yorkshire, and, in 1683, when the province was divided into counties, it became part of Queens County, one of the original counties of New York.

Colonial Jamaica had a band of 56 Minutemen that played an active part in the Battle of Long Island, the outcome of which led to the occupation of the New York City area by British troops during most of the American Revolutionary War. In Jamaica, "George Washington slept here" is indeed true — in 1790, in William Warner's tavern. Rufus King, a signer of the United States Constitution, relocated here in 1805. He added to a modest 18th-century farmhouse, creating the manor which stands on the site today. King Manor has recently been restored to its former glory, and now houses King Manor Museum.

By 1776, Jamaica had become a trading post for farmers and their produce. For more than a century, their horse-drawn carts plodded along Jamaica Avenue, then called King's Highway. The public school system started in 1813, funded for $125 and a year later, Jamaica Village was incorporated. By 1834, the Brooklyn and Jamaica Railroad company had completed a line to Jamaica.

In 1850, Jamaica Avenue (Fulton Street), became a plank road, complete with toll gate. In 1866, tracks were laid for a horsecar line, and 20 years later it was electrified, the first in the state. On January 1, 1898, Queens became part of the City of New York, and Jamaica became the county seat.

The Jamaica station of the Long Island Rail Road was completed in 1913, and the BMT Jamaica Line arrived in 1918. The 1920s and 1930s saw the building of the Valencia Theatre (now restored by the Tabernacle of Prayer), the "futuristic" Kurtz furniture Store and the Roxanne Building.

Transportation

Jamaica Station is a central transfer point on the Long Island Rail Road (LIRR), which is headquartered in a building adjoining the station; all but one of the commuter railroad's lines (the Port Washington Branch) run through Jamaica.

The New York City Subway's F train terminates at 179th Street on the IND Queens Boulevard Line, while the E, J, and Z trains terminate at Jamaica Center–Parsons Boulevard on the Archer Avenue Line.

Jamaica's bus network provides extensive service across eastern Queens, as well as to destinations as distant as Hicksville in Nassau County, the western Bronx, the Rockaways, and Midtown Manhattan. Nearly all bus lines serving Jamaica terminate there; most do so at the 165th Street Bus Terminal or the Jamaica Center subway station.

Jamaica is also connected to John F. Kennedy International Airport—one of the busiest international airports in the United States and the world—by AirTrain JFK, which runs between terminals at the airport and connects to central Jamaica at the LIRR station.

Major streets include Archer Avenue, Hillside Avenue, Jamaica Avenue, Liberty Avenue, Merrick Boulevard, Parsons Boulevard, Guy R. Brewer Boulevard (formerly known as New York Boulevard), and Sutphin Boulevard, as well as the Van Wyck Expressway (I-678) and the Grand Central Parkway.

Neighboring areas are Jamaica Estates, Jamaica Hills, Hillcrest, St. Albans, Hollis, Queens Village, South Ozone Park, Richmond Hill, Laurelton, Rosedale, Brookville, Rochdale, Springfield Gardens, and South Flushing.