Eclectic Dignity

Three hundred and fifty years ago, Dutch farmers named the Rikers worked the fertile land beside Old Bowery Bay, never dreaming that the misty island across the way would centuries later make their name synonymous with lock-downs and convicted felons. Probably equally inconceivable to them was the thought that their family's humble little 1654 farmhouse in Jackson Heights would survive to become the oldest private dwelling in New York City.

By Denise Flaim