Sunday, December 31, 2017

Defining the border


"The border between Queens, NYC & Nassau County, Long Island isn't so clear in places. There really isn't a defining body of land or water which determines the border, so maps are required to be referenced. Features such as street sign and fire hydrant styles give some clues on which side of the border you're on."

11 comments:

JQ LLC said...

The ending is pretty funny. If I am mistaken, the border starts at that house where the yellow hydrant is, because it looks like that one is behind the city black hydrant. This sounds absurd but imagine using your gps system to ask the path to Nassau and it tells you to make a right and you crash into that house.

It's somewhat easier to figure out where the border hits in southeast queens. I usually go by where the belt parkway intersects with sunrise highway.

Happy new year Queens Crap and everybody in the "world's borough", if they still call it that.

Anonymous said...

It's easy to tell when you are in NYC from long island. Traffic slows to a crawl. Vision zero has y'all brainwashed.

Anonymous said...

How about that bogus 'Arbitration Rock' that defines the Brooklyn-Queens border. Like Queen Catherine, it has no basis in fact but everyone in Queens repeats it because they are told to.

It seems mysterious that no one has any reports on the $10,000 spent to open a street and, after digging around aimlessly cause it wasn't 'found' where it should have been, a convenient rock was 'discovered' to drag it a few hundred feet and make a monument of it.

Anonymous said...

I never understood why the city doesnt post more signs stating the border. Everywhere else you go there are usually signs stating the county lines.

Anonymous said...

I'm with Trump.

Build That Wall!!!!!!

That way everyone could tell and crime will decrease in Nassau County.

TommyR said...

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/16/nyregion/nyregionspecial2/the-defining-line.html

is worthwhile reading.

Anon, that "bogus" rock was set in 1769, and has as much legitimacy as any idiocy people then and now use to determine boundaries. Which is to say, somewhere between nada and just over zilch, depending on how long and loudly you're willing to waste your breath arguing about it to someone who cares.

https://ny.curbed.com/2016/5/24/11755562/how-bushwick-and-ridgewood-once-entwined-became-distinct-neighborhoods

If you know enough to rattle off the Catherine reference, you'd know it's somewhat substantiated because of the similar naming conventions that applied to Kings and Richmond.

"The most prominent marker along the January 7, 1769 Survey Line, settled the century-old boundary dispute between the towns of Bushwick and Newtown, and the counties of Queens and Kings. The rock was originally located 297 feet northwest of the Vander Ende-Onderdonk House, several feet below the current roadbed of Onderdonk Avenue. It was buried about 1930 when the area on the northerly side of Flushing Avenue was graded in preparation for the opening of part of Onderdonk Avenue. Arbitration Rock was moved to its current site behind the Onderdonk House along the old boundary line on August 8, 2001."

Most of this ceased to meaningfully matter when Bushwick and Newtown were made part of the City we live in now, but it's nice to know in some trivial sense. My pop worked on some of the renovations for the Onderdonk house. I always admire it whenever I drive home from work.

Kevin Walsh said...

The border between Queens and Nassau in NE Queens is actually the line between the towns of Flushing and North Hempstead. In 1898, Queens was divided in half with the new Nassau County staying out of NYC and the western half of Queens joining NYC. Since many of the streets were laid out after 1898, the line doesn't go along streets and most of the time, lies midblock.

Kevin Walsh said...

Forgotten New York's 4-part series on the Queens-Nassau Line

http://forgotten-ny.com/2011/06/queens-nassau-line-part-1/

TommyR said...

Thanks for the additional knowledge Kevin. I sometimes wonder how Queens would've looked had it "kept" the rest of itself, maybe stayed large enough to be self-governing in a way.

Anonymous said...

I see NYC homes without sidewalks, is it legal? Recently I got a summons for a cracked sidewalk, if I dug up the cement and made a dirt path would it be legal? Anybody know?

Anonymous said...

LOL!
Build a wall!