Flushing's Changing Scene

A creek runs through it. Flushing Creek, that is. These images were both taken from the eastern side of the Flushing Creek Bridge, with the photographers facing Northern Boulevard. After that, similiarities are few. The older photo, according to James Driscoll, director of research at the Queens Historical Society, appears to have been taken around 1910. The building on the left was the American Ice Co. The fenced property in the distant left was home to the Prince family, which opened America's first commercial nursery in Flushing in 1737. The tracks embedded in the block roadbed were for a trolley that ran from Long Island City through Flushing and south to Jamaica. Another trolley ran north to College Point. Driscoll says a new Flushing Creek Bridge was built for the 1939 World's Fair, and another has since replaced it. And Northern Boulevard grows ever busier.