Saturday, July 14, 2018

A glimpse of Queens in the 1960s



You can't help but wonder... WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED?

Oh yeah, tweeding happened.

32 comments:

Anonymous said...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_and_Nationality_Act_of_1965

This is what happened.

Anonymous said...

Where have you gone Joe DiMaggio?

Anonymous said...

Idyllic wasn't it? I love the long fins and the short skirts. Some are late 60s and some are before 1960. But what the pictures don't say is that NYC was in a ripping heroin epidemic and the mob was in it's heyday. Just sayin', sometimes pictures are not always worth a thousand words.

Anonymous said...

Who would have thought falafel would take off?

Joe Moretti said...

WOW. Besides the fact that the neighborhoods were not overcrowded (and seemed to be more white), notice how pretty damn clean the streets and sidewalks were. No trash all over the place and no overflowing garbage cans, it seemed that people back then took pride in the communities they lived and shopped in. No 99 cent stores and other low-class third world country stores that now take up entire blocks.

This will piss some off, but it seems that many of the non-white population and especially the new batch of immigrants that have come here in the last 15-20 years have trashed communities with so much garbage and seem not to care about littering. NOW granted the city caused much of this shit with over-development and lack of enforcement of quality of life laws, but IT IS THE PEOPLE who have made messes of communities and turned them into crappy third world country villages. I mean otherwise, how do you explain such a huge difference from then and now. It seems pretty clear to me, but then most of us on here already knew this. BUT that does not let this shitty city off the hook.

Anonymous said...

I enjoyed that. Thank you.

Anonymous said...

I was just telling my dad the other day that it used to be such a short drive between our house in bayside to my great aunt house in Woodside in the early 80s even and now it takes such a long time to drive between bayside and Woodside anymore. She used to live in the house she grew up in which was back in the early 1900s. She was born in 1907. After she passed in the early 90s,she left the house to my father and one of his sisters. I wish he didnt have to sell it. It was a beautiful 2 family house and it had a steep slope in the front of it where there was a garden. It was a beautiful house. Also, I have pictures from the 50s and 60s of times square and certain other areas in NYC that were taken by my aunt. I miss the old days when NYC was NYC. Nowadays, it just sucks. Everything is just crap.

Anonymous said...

I certainly shows the impact of dumping the 3rd world into the middle of a former great city, and it also shows how the Queens Democratic Party no longer serves the interest of our nation, but the survival of itself - it can thrive as it sucks the life out of everything else.

Sad.

Anonymous said...

Maybe Trump can make Queens great again. LOL!

Joe said...

WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED?
Immigration and_Nationality_Act, voting and Civil rights acts of the 1960s

The final nail in te coffin was John Lindsay and his big "Welcome come and get it" offer to all the garbage the rest of the world didn't want.
I was a kid in Bushwick at the time, It went to total shit slum in only a 3 short years between 1967-and 1970. One day a pack of coloreds killed the little kid next door in the hallway at PS-274. My parents then decided to move to Ridgewood, I remember the Stier house on Seneca ave in 1969 cost 36K and we could only get $8K for the house on Dekalb by Central ave but it was worked out by a friend of the family my grandfather knew who lived in Ridgwood next to the house we were buying.
Shortly after that I remember a nasty Hurricane (Camille I think) and the city going bankrupt due to John Lindsay socialist actions. My father worked in the bank he signed some of those "Big Mack" bailout bonds for the city.--something like that anyway

I'm watching the same shit happen all over again thanks to stupid voters, Obama & deBlasio. Its like a flashback nightmare.

Anonymous said...

Wow!Great photos. Brought back wonderful memories of a world that no longer exists. What happened? Well, one poster on a wall says "Vote for John Lindsay". That was a big mistake. Most of the people in the photos are now deceased; the rest of us are old and many have moved out. The people who replaced us don't give a damn. They came mostly from "shithole countries" (to quote our President) and don't care if Queens gets to look like "home"! Can't think of a better place to grow up. Too bad it isn't still the same.

Anonymous said...

For the most part, the streets are clean and unencumbered. The third world people don't like to be told to sweep the sidewalk or stop blasting anti American sermons in Arabic, like in Jackson Heights
Makes me very sad to see these photos.

Anonymous said...

It's never getting better. Get out of NY

Anonymous said...

These photos are fantastic!

My own memories are in color, and so it's nice to take a walk down memory lane to match my own recollections with those in these snapshots.
The photo of the WWI monument on Myrtle Avenue took me a while to digest because I realized that one of the streets is not longer there. The view is from Cypress Ave. looking South towards Myrtle. We see a cross street that is now gone and turned into a pedestrian plaza.
The old bank building is still there but it's a Rite Aid or Walgreens or some other drug store.
I notice how the advertisements were much classier then. The posted images were framed in gold and of uniform size on the sides of stores.
The store fronts had nicely done neon signs or molded signage of a high graphic quality.
Today most stores couldn't give a crap about these details and settle for a printed image of a potato on polyester canvas. Gaudy as shit for the most part.
On Union Turnpike in Fresh Meadows there was a fantastic 50's sign over Ben-Ric Furs. They actually tore it down to put up some gaudy and obviously inferior looking signage. What where they thinking? This was about the same time they closed one of the last of the original Chinese Restaurants with the wooden telephone booths, white table cloths and Tiki bar inside (King Yum).
The photos of Rego Park bring back vivid memories of the Alexander's store with its large orange/red sign. You can see it in the pictures. They had a diner inside as I recall, right on the corner walking down from Queens Blvd.
Jackson Heights is the oldest of my own memories and I was hoping to see one of the ubiquitous Chock Full O'Nuts coffee stores with their yellow counters and fantastic corn muffins...I can still smell the mix of coffee/muffins in there.

I can't say it's all bad now though. There are certainly beautiful streets and neighborhoods today which some 5 year old will look back fondly on in the year 2070.
They'll probably remember the old Apple stores with their glass and shining computer tablets all white, just as longingly as I recall the large image of the Playboy club that used to occupy the site off 5th Avenue (too young to actually take a look inside then unfortunately). Maybe they'll remember Sears stores and Toys-R-Us stores and look back with the same rose colored glasses.

Whatever happened to those nice blue BlockBuster Video stores?


On the balance I'd say there will always be beautiful streets in our memories, even
those ugly ones with the run down awnings and cheap 99cent stores that nobody bothers to look twice at today.


Harry Haller

Anonymous said...

Made me sad to look at these... granted, things change, but clearly in this case the change is not for the better

Anonymous said...

Message to Joe Moretti --

I was visiting my childhood home recently and visited with a neighbor. He told how hard his family had to work when they moved to the community. He said it was a tough job to try to keep up with the immaculate yards and gardens of the people who already lived in the community. Yes, the 60's.

Joe said...

"Get out of NY"
True but I don't know what's worse putting up with the shit or living cheap in some west bumblefuck boonsville and scratch your ass and look at trees all day
Worse having to get in a car and drive to do anything, cant go to the bar or have any fun without risking DUI.
I had a house in Mattituck, jeez what misery that was. The drugs, alcoholics, Southold township corruption, Mexicans everyplace, the black gangs from Greenport. It was awful

For some of us moving to some burbs is just trading one form of misery for another.
I been on rock tours as a guitar player, sound engineer, backline tech, guitar teck, FOH tech you name it over the years. Seen almost every city and they are ALL still shit next to New York in my opinion.
In Tulsa for example: They roll the sidewalks up 6PM, not a sole or car on the street and you cant even order a glass of wine in In Buzz Delasandro's Italian restaurant after that 6PM.-- 7 days a week.
F_ that conservative red state bible packing BS, the grass is no greener unless you wanna live like a cow or need a place to die in my opinion.

Anonymous said...

"Get out of NY"
Interesting post and common saying.
Come to think of it everybody I knew who moved out of New York were never really happy but became just MISERABLE. Many developed alcoholism, depression, weight gain, got into drug abuse and are all now dead.
The only exception were 2 neighbors, Aunt and uncle who moved to Florida to be near there children and grandchildren (and get away from snow shovels)
The people still here are the same, they just complain more.

My grandfather always said "if you want to kill me just make me live in the country"

Anonymous said...

Was that from the queens luncheonette tour of the 1960’s?

Anonymous said...

Loved the shot of the electric busses on Flushing Ave. They were the BQX of the 50's and 60's, only much more inexpensive.

Anonymous said...

as long as the bigots and cowards do "get out of new york," the city will continue to get better and better.

alabama awaits.

Person said...

Do you just make stuff up? Do you even speak Arabic ?

>>The third world people don't like to be told to >>sweep the sidewalk or stop blasting anti >>American sermons in Arabic, like in Jackson >>Heights

Anonymous said...

Now, I don't know how much of the rest of the United States that the commenters here in this thread have seen, but even during the 1960s, you could not pay most Americans to live in NYC because the standard of living has always been considered to be low compared to the rest of the United States. People used to always say that it was nice to visit but they would not want to live here. My relatives seldom visited me here because they were not overly impressed——even with the homes of some of my relatives' friends who made their permanent homes here in Manhattan, the outer boroughs, the suburbs and the exurbs!

I can understand about certain individuals waxing nostalgic for their old neighborhoods——but the ones depicted in the slides are just average, and they look to be predominantly (actually, totally) white and blue collar. Regarding the standard of living, in all of those slides, I saw only one small tree (barren), not one flower or blade of grass, and cheap construction.

People, get over yourselves!

Anonymous said...

Amazing time capsule. I noticed a circus poster (featuring the amazing Lou Jacobs!) on a couple of photos that was dated. I did a little internet sleuthing and was able to track down that particular year to 1966. Which sort of makes sense. Some of the advertising does strike me as more of a mid to late 60s feel.

Anonymous said...

It's apparent that many in the audience of this site see brown people as the cause for all the negative changes from the 1960s to now. However, the real culprit is the power and control given by our elected officials to big Real Estate interests. These people have overdeveloped our neighborhoods to such an extent that they are no longer livable. Doubling the population of many neighborhoods has left them dirty and harder to navigate. The property values go up as the quality of life goes down.

Anonymous said...

>I was just telling my dad the other day that it used to be such a short drive between our house in bayside to my great aunt house in Woodside in the early 80s even and now it takes such a long time to drive between bayside and Woodside anymore.

You can thank Vision Zero (mph) for that.

Anonymous said...

Wen you leave, please do not come down here to DE and vote for the same shitheads that drove you out - the Democrats.

Anonymous said...

Well Joe, I hate to tell you, but most of us in Boonville don't want you anyway. We have our own problems to deal with in the turn our country has taken over the past 20 years and we want positive, smart and innovative New Yorkers moving to our town. You are destined to live the nightmare Joe!

Anonymous said...

"It's apparent that many in the audience of this site see brown people as the cause for all the negative changes from the 1960s to now. However, the real culprit is the power and control given by our elected officials to big Real Estate interests."

Bingo. And who do you think voted those corrupt officials in? Couldn't have POSSIBLY been any of these anti-immigrant leaning posters on here now, could it?

You let 'em be bought. And now you own it. Funny how that works.

Sunnyside Al said...

You can argue that Long Island City, Sunnyside, Astoria, Rego Park and Forest Hills still have predominately English signage.

In areas such as Woodside, Jackson Heights, Corona, Flushing and Bayside it’s a different story.

The problem is illegal immigration and visa overstays, which enable people who keep their culture and bring it with them.

My maternal grandparents could not wait to be Americans when they arrived. Not the same story today as when I speak to certain people, they ask, “ why did’t your grandparents or parents teach you their language?”

My response, “English became THEIR language the minute they decided to leave the old country and come to this one.”

The federal government could fix this problem in a week but they love the division for political purposes and especially their lobbyists LOVE the cheap labor.

Anonymous said...

What happened? de Blasio happened!

Unknown said...

i see a lot of of people talking about the good old days in the 60's and how blacks or immigrants have changed the neighborhoods,let me tell you you did the same for the people before you,just look at your own families ,you come from immigrants,with last names like Martini,Guliani,shcwartz,your Dna is not even american even though you were born here you come from other continet,white people come from Europe,Black people from Africa,
go back to history and if you have Indian American Dna then complain whites are, and will always be immigrants too,it is just that you dont recognize it.
Even the actual President has zero American Dna in his blood ,german father ,scotish mom,now his son is the same with a immigrant mother lime Mela ia Trump ,zero american Dna.