Art Moderne Bank in Little Neck

A walk through the neighborhoods of the northern part of Queens, College Point, Whitestone, even Bayside, will reward the urban enthusiast with glimpses of the small Long Island North Shore towns they used to be. There are town centers at 14th Avenue and 150th Street in Whitestone, along College Point Boulevard between 14th and 18th Avenue, and Bell Boulevard between Northern Boulevard and 35th Avenue. The spaces between these town centers, once meadows or farmland, have been filled with block after block of one and two-family homes and seem to have been thoroughly “folded” into a uniform Queens fabric: definitely not the dense, urban feel of a Soho or a Park Slope, but not the thoroughly suburban atmosphere of a Levittown or Hicksville.

The two “northeasternmost” of Queens’ neighborhoods, Douglaston and Little Neck, however, have a different tone: they somehow seem carved out of the rather exclusive, monied precincts of the Nassau County townships immediately to the east, Great Neck and Manhasset. Both neighborhoods are served by a short shopping strip along Northern Boulevard, and the area’s hilly topography doesn’t lend itself to block upon block of similar-looking ranch houses.

The Moderne bank at Little Neck Parkway and Northern Boulevard, with its formidable eagle, was designed in 1927 by Paul LaVelle, who had previously worked with Stanford White. Little Neck National Bank was initiated by local realtor Bryce Rea, William Hutton and the aforementioned William Van Nostrand. It has been a Chase branch for over 30 years.

Across the street from the Chase was the Scobee diner, where future CIA director George Tenet bussed tables back in the Super Seventies. The diner opened in 1965, but closed in 2010, citing a catastrophic rent increase from the landlord. The diner was finally demolished in 2013, and a Citibank will rise in its place.