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A few years ago, local controversy in LIC and Astoria was centered around a pair of Dutch era artifacts known colloquially as “The Queens Plaza Mill Stones.” The mill stones date back to the 1640s and were originally part of Burger Jorrisen’s homestead. For most of the 20th century, the artifacts were embedded in a sidewalk in Queens Plaza. When the “Queens Plaza Improvement Project” began, the mill stones were uprooted and stored in a decidedly dangerous manner. The Greater Astoria Historical Society led the charge on protesting this, and there was quite a hullaballoo about the matter, one which ended up being fairly divisive.

In the end, Jimmy Van Bramer stepped in, calmed the warring parties, and arranged for the stones to be moved from the construction zone and stored at the Queens Library until the construction was done. The ultimate home for the things was always meant to be the new Dutch Kills Greens Park, the creation of which was the whole point of the “Queens Plaza Improvement Project.” I was wandering around Queens Plaza last week and decided to check in on the Mill Stones, which ended up being a disturbing visit.

More after the jump…

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Dutch Kills Green itself is actually a surprisingly lovely spot, and has all sorts of modern features baked into its design. There’s consideration for storm water retention, native plantings, and it’s a huge improvement over what used to be here – a parking lot. Observationally, the park is well used by students from a nearby school and workers from JetBlue and all the other companies and organizations based in Queens Plaza.

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As mentioned, there are two of these artifacts on display at Dutch Kills Green. The first one is found along one of the pedestrian paths, and it seems to be in fine fettle.

From NYC Parks:

The Millstones in Queens Plaza

Two historic millstones were extracted from the pavement at Queens Plaza and installed in this new landscape, only several hundred feet from the site of the first watermill in Queens – and very likely the mill that once used these stones.  Their survival is credited to generations of citizens who sought to preserve them in the face of a rapidly changing landscape, first apparent with the arrival of the railway in the 1860s.   Displayed here among the plantings and benches, the stones are a tangible link to the rural past of western Queens.

The stones are the remains of a tidal gristmill used to grind locally grown corn and grain into flour.  Millstones worked in pairs.  Placed one on top of the other with their engraved surfaces or ‘dressing’ facing each other, the lower or ‘bed stone’ remained stationary while the upper or ‘runner’ stone was turned by an axle.  Grain was funneled in between the stones.  As the runner stone rotated over the bed stone, the matching ridges of the dressing met like blades of scissors. Though the stones never touched, their ridges cracked the shell of the grain, producing a meal or flour.  The flour ran out through the furrows of the stones into sacks.

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Unfortunately, the second one – which is calamitously positioned alongside the busy bus and truck route that is 41st Avenue/Bridge Plaza North – isn’t in quite the same shape. Apparently this damage occurred better than two years ago, but this is the first time that I’ve actually photographed it. The Greater Astoria Historical Society fellows, however, raised the flag about this in a NY Daily News article.

From NY Daily News:

“They are not going to last much longer while exposed to the elements,” Bob Singleton, executive director of the Greater Astoria Historical Society, told the Daily News on Wednesday.

A group of concerned stakeholders keep a “continuous watch” on the millstones, and quickly noticed the damage to one of them, Singleton said. The millstone had a previous crack in that spot.

His organization is reigniting its years-long push to have them relocated to somewhere indoors, Singleton said.

“You don’t need the precious artifacts to be exposed to uncertainties of urban life,” he said.

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That is a pretty nice bit of damage, in my opinion.

From Queens Gazette:

The millstones date back to 1648 when they were originally part of Burger Jorrisen’s homestead. A German immigrant, Jorrisen and his family lived on a farm near Bridge Plaza and Jackson Avenue and built a dam across Dutch Kills, now 40th Avenue, where he constructed a water-powered gristmill that utilized the two millstones. Jorrisen’s sons sold the farm after his death in 1671. Several years later the Payntar family purchased the property. Jorrisen’s mill remained at the Dutch Kills site for more than a century. The remains of the gristmill were clearly visible until 1861, when the construction of Long Island Rail Road tracks erased all traces.

The Payntar family rescued one of the millstones from the Long Island Rail Road construction and set it in a sidewalk in front of a house at 30-55 29th St. in Astoria. When the house was demolished, the city moved the stone to a sidewalk in front of the Long Island Savings Bank at Bridge Plaza North in the early 1980s. One of the stones suffered a large crack during the placement in the traffic island.

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What really cheeses me off is the incredibly clumsy nature of the repairs to this artifact. Is that joint compound?

Personally, I’d really like to see these stones protected and preserved in a more profound way, but there you are. What do you think about it, Queensicans?

Newtown Creek Alliance Historian Mitch Waxman lives in Astoria and blogs at Newtown Pentacle.


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