linneaus
Linneaus Place

Flushing has kept many of its old street names, not converting them to the numerical grid that is de rigueur in many other sections of the borough. The southern part of the neighborhood features streets in alphabetical order beginning with Ash and ending in Rose. Their presence is not incidental. In the colonial era, Flushing was the home of one of the country’s largest plant nurseries.

Planter William Prince established a commercial plant farm, or nursery, in western Flushing in 1737 along Flushing Bay. He first limited his business to apple, plum, pear and other fruit and flowering trees, and later expanded to shade and ornamental trees. After Prince’s business slumped during the Revolutionary War, he gained ground again and by 1789, President Washington had heard of him, and accompanied by Vice President Adams, paid a visit. According to accounts, though he seemed unimpressed with the gardens, he purchased a fruit tree.

Prince’s son William Prince Jr. established a new plant business north of Northern Boulevard (then called Broadway) in 1793; it would later be united with the original gardens and named the “Linnean Gardens.” Swedish naturalist Carolus Linnaeus had established the system of biological naming known as “binomial nomenclature” consisting of a Latin genus name followed by a descriptive term: for example, Homo sapiens means ‘wise man.’

Other plant nurseries appeared in Flushing during the 1800s; one of the more successful was Samuel Parsons’, whose family gave Parsons Boulevard its name. Parsons brought the popular pink-flowered dogwood, as well as planted a weeping beech tree in 1847 on what is now 37th Avenue that survived 150 years. Its descendants, grown from cuttings, are still there.

linneaus.map
Hagstrom map, 1995

As the 19th century wore on, however, Flushing became both more industrial and residential in character, and the nurseries disappeared. Today only the street names bear witness to their former presence: the Waldheim development’s Ash, Beech, Cherry, etc. Avenues; Parsons Boulevard; Prince Street; and an odd, C-shaped little alley on Prince between 32nd and 35th Avenues, Linneaus Place, hidden among the auto parts stores and lumberyards that now dominate the area. Little Linneaus was only recently granted a new street paving job and its very own set of sewers.

Kevin Walsh is the webmaster of Forgotten NY and the author of Forgotten New York and, with the Greater Astoria Historical Society, Forgotten Queens.


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