Beaudoin Realty Group

Jackson Heights, is a vibrant, ethnically diverse community with a true sense of place. Located in the borough of Queens, less than five miles east of midtown Manhattan, it is home to one of the largest Historic Districts in New York City. Jackson Heights is a true "neighborhood," one where people know and interact with each another along our commercial and residential streets. Everything you need - whether it be a school, house or worship, post office, supermarket, restaurant, or access to public transportation - is, at most, just a few blocks away. Many residents find that owning a car is unnecessary.

Our housing stock was built to a very high standard, mostly between 1910 and 1950. There are many lovely brick rowhouses in Georgian, Neo-Tudor and Mediterranean styles. They are complemented by many garden apartments built between 1917 and 1940. These apartments share a large enclosed private park - or garden - that is, in most cases, not visible from the street. While gardens were no longer included in apartment buildings constructed after World War II, these later structures blend harmoniously with earlier residences. The pictures on this page provide just a sample of the wide variety of houses and apartment buildings that make Jackson Heights such a great place to live.

Unlike most other neighborhoods, our commercial district - along 37th Avenue and 74th, 82nd and 90th Streets - was designed to integrate with the residential housing stock. And recently, thanks to Jackson Heights having been landmarked in 1993, commercial signs and awnings have been installed - both inside and outside of the historic district - that complement the charm and character of the surrounding architecture. Roosevelt Avenue, Junction Boulevard, and Northern Boulevard are also home to many commercial businesses. Jackson Heights is well known for its wide variety of restaurants - ranging from Continental, Indian, Thai, Colombian, to American barbeque. You may have already visited Jackson Heights for that very reason, and not been aware of the wonderful houses and apartment buildings just a few blocks away.

Jackson Heights is located close to the geographic center of New York City, making it convenient to Manhattan, Long Island, Westchester, Connecticut, and New Jersey. (Click for Queens map.) There is easy access to public transportation, with mid-town Manhattan less than 20 minutes away by subway. The 74th Street - Roosevelt Avenue station is being extensively renovated, and it offers convenient access to both the subway and buses. From this station you can catch the:

All in all, Jackson Heights is a wonderful place to call home. It is a friendly, affordable and historic community that you will no doubt come to enjoy.

The Jackson Heights Historic District

Developed between the two World Wars, Jackson Heights was the first planned garden and cooperative apartment community built in the United States. On October 19, 1993 the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission landmarked approximately 36 blocks of Jackson Heights, creating the Jackson Heights Historic District.

Six years later, New York State and the Federal Governments designated an even larger portion of Jackson Heights as an Historic District. The area encompassing most of the blocks between 69th and 91st Streets, from Roosevelt Avenue to Northern Boulevard, is listed on the State and National Register of Historic Places.

The Queensboro Corporation, the developer of Jackson Heights, coined the term "Garden Apartment" in 1917. Between 1917 and 1940 it built about 15 garden apartment complexes, although the largest and most glamorous were constructed prior to 1926. They were all given names - including Hampton Court, Elm Court, The Chateau, and The Towers - that evoked their English, French and Mediterranean architectural styles. The apartments have great character, with many offering between two and four exposures, nine-foot ceilings, fireplaces, and sunrooms. These buildings are only one apartment deep (compared to two for most New York apartment buildings) and surround a large private garden at the center of the block. Many have been in continuous operation as cooperatives since the 1920s.

The Queensboro Corporation realized that not everyone wanted to live in an apartment, no matter how glamorous. Many families preferred private homes. So in 1924, beginning on 87th Street, Queensboro built what it called "English Garden Homes." The first three-story brick homes contained a convertible feature - a separate four-room apartment on the top floor. As it did with its garden apartments, the homes built by Queensboro grew more luxurious in each ensuing year. All are constructed of brick, with most having fireplaces, garages, high ceilings and oak floors.

The following description of the Jackson Heights Historic District is comprised of excerpts from the designation report prepared by the Landmarks Preservation Commission*:

The Jackson Heights Historic District comprises the most cohesive part of an innovative residential development, which was mostly built between the early 1910s and the early 1950s. The development reflects important changes in urban design and planning that took place in the first three decades of the twentieth century. Conceived, planned, built in part, and managed under the direction of a single real estate firm the Queensboro Corporation, and its president Edward A. MacDougall, Jackson Heights is one of the earliest neighborhoods in New York to introduce two new building types, "garden apartments" and "garden homes." Commercial, institutional, recreational and transportation facilities were integrated with the residential buildings to create an alternative for middle-class residents to the then typical urban neighborhood. Influenced in its planning and management by a number of sources including the "model tenement" or improved housing movement in New York City at the end of the nineteenth century and the "Garden City" movement at the beginning of the twentieth century, Jackson Heights generated both national and international interest.

… The Queensboro Corporation initiated in Jackson Heights an important planning concept, developed from ideas and examples of the model housing movement of the nineteenth century, which involved the treatment of the rectangular block created by the street grid system as a single unit of planning and design, rather than as a collection of individual building lots to be developed independently. This design concept is seen in the area's "garden apartments" of the 1910s and 1920s, which are among New York's earliest examples of this type of apartment house, and in the "garden homes," clusters of attached and semi-attached houses, which were built after 1924.

From the time of its development, Jackson Heights attracted middle-class families desiring a convenient, pleasant alternative to the typical urban neighborhood. Today, Jackson Heights continues to be a vibrant community, which, because of its overall design, planning and integration of open space, as well as its high degree of intactness, has a strongly defined sense of place.

* Source: New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission, Jackson Heights Historic District - Designation Report, October 19, 1993.