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There are a pair of very short, hidden lanes on the north side of Northern Boulevard between Marathon and Little Neck Parkways. Cornell Lane, which is marked by the Department of Transportation, is the longer of the two and is lined by a set of cozy one-family homes. The lane was formerly a part of the Cornell family’s Little Neck holdings. Possibly, the lane is named for Henry Benjamin Cornell, a member of Zion Church, who is buried in its churchyard. A lost lane called Wright’s Lane formerly intersected Cornell Lane, but no trace of it remains today.

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Five generations of the Cornell family made their homes in Little Neck. They were descended from Quaker Richard Cornell, who had come to Flushing from Rhode Island in 1643 and had received a land grant from the Dutch West India Company.

A Cornell farmhouse still stands on Little Neck Parkway just north of the Long Island Expressway.

Samuel Cornell, born 1702, raised produce for Manhattan markets sending it by barge from the north end of the Old House Landing Road, now Little Neck Parkway. A descendant of Samuel Cornell was Ezra Cornell, the founder of Cornell University.

Although modern development and renovations have come to Cornell Lane you can still see some small, unaltered cottages. Some still have the original one-digit house numbers.

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The shorter of the two, Jessie Court, is about half the length of Cornell Lane, with only a three houses facing it. Two doors in, a building presently used as a doctor’s office is the former Little Neck Long Island Rail Road station house; it was moved here after the present station was built in the 1890s.

This alley and Cornell Lane next door have been on property maps for years but aren’t officially on NYC maps. The second frame building here, according to legend, was the first Little Neck RR station building, moved here decades ago.


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