The blog Polis, which is a blog about cities around the globe, recently wrote about Jackson Heights as part of their Featured Places section of the site. The impetus to go there was the periodic “gravity” toward NYC that sucks in the writer, Melanie Friedrichs, and essentially forces her into the city. She also had an assignment for their study-abroad “Cities in the 21st Century” class which specified Jackson Heights as her destination, which also happened to be a place she had visited before.

This collage of photos of JaxHeights through the subway windows is pretty cool.

jackson-heights-through-subway-windows-queens

Image source: Polis

It is interesting to read about the neighborhood through their eyes. A few days before their venturing into Jackson Heights, they attended a lecture by director of the population division of New York’s planning department, Joe Salvo. He had one piece of advice: “If you want to see New York, go ride the 7 train.” So, they headed to Queens via subway.

She loved how multicultural the neighborhood is and how it has retained its unique flavor as a neighborhood within a huge city. She also came across – in a way that sounded like chance – Daniel Karatzas, a Jackson Heights historian. Through him, she learned about the history of the garden apartment co-ops that sprang up in the early 20th century.

The vast food options were also exciting to the writer – not a surprise!

Return to Jackson Heights [Polis]
Today in history – Jackson Heights garden apartments advertised on the radio in 1922 [QNYC]
Jackson Heights finds itself in Highbrow Magazine and possibly eclectic [QNYC]


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