Jamaica: The center of it all for generations

43rd Anniversary Edition Jamaica: ‘rest-town’ to major hub

Former beaver encampment becomes bustling city

by Naeisha Rose

Associate Editor

For many, the history of Jamaica, a middle-class mixed commercial and residential neighborhood, dates back to 1656, when it was first established as Rustdorp (rest-town) by Peter Stuyvesant, the last Dutch director general.

Before Dutch colonial rule, Jamaica was an encampment for nomadic Native Americans, according to Jason Antos, the executive director of the Queens Historical Society.

“There were indigenous people there,” said Antos. “Jamaica comes from the word Yamecah, which is a Lenape word for the place of the beaver pelt, and it was corrupted by the British into the word Jamaica.”

Lenape is the language of the Algonquin Native American tribe that traded fur with the Dutch before the British took over what is mostly modern day New York in 1664. The Algonquins’ history in the Americas is more than 12,000 years.

“It also has a rich Colonial history,” said Antos. “It was where the British were encamped during the Revolutionary War.”

After the Revolutionary War came to an end in 1783, Jamaica was also where the British left to escape from the American revolutionaries.

“Jamaica extends down to the water where the bay is and it gives access to Brooklyn,” said Antos about the escape route. “It was strategically located.”

Rufus King, an abolitionist and a framer of the Constitution, was one of the Founding Fathers of the United States and his legacy continues to live on in Jamaica at King Manor Museum at Rufus King Park, located at 150-29 Jamaica Ave.

“His home is in the heart of Jamaica,” said Antos. “It’s a historical house on a huge piece of property.”

The manor was purchased in 1805 as a place for King to retire from politics, according to Kelsey Brow, executive director of King Manor Museum, which offers tours of the home.

The museum, which was opened to the public in 1900, was one of the earliest historic house museums in the United States, is a New York City landmark and was listed as a National Register of Historic Places. It is the only such historic house in Southeast Queens and once sat on 160 acres. The 11-acre park lies where the remaining estate and farmland used to exist.

At a trianglular plaza located at 173-175 Hillside Avenue is Major Mark Park. At its center is a bronze angel figure that commemorates the Union Army soldiers and sailors from Queens who died during the Civil War. The life-size angel figure was designed by French-trained sculptor Frederick Wellington Ruckstull and has a laurel wreath (victory symbol) in the left hand and a palm frond (peace symbol) in the right.

The park was named after Major John Mark, a soldier who lost his life in World War I.

South of Jamaica’s business district is Det. Keith L. Williams Park located on Liberty Avenue, between 172nd and 173rd streets. The green space was named after a member of the NYPD Queens District Attorney’s Squad who was murdered Nov. 13, 1989 by a prisoner who was being returned to Riker’s Island.

The parkland consists of a recreational center, running track, seasonal pool and playing courts and fields and was dedicated to the detective in 1991.

Before the Civil War, Jamaica consisted of family farm homesteads that grew lettuce and cabbage and had fruit orchards.

“There were very few working farms in Queens,” said Antos.

By the 1870s, Jamaica had experienced a population boom.

“There were a lot of businesses on Jamaica Avenue, which was originally known as Fulton Avenue,” said Antos. “Jamaica Avenue began as the Jamaica Plank Road.”

In the 1840s through the 1850s, thoroughfares were built. “The roads were originally dirt roads, but when they started building thoroughfares, they used plankwood, similar to the wood found on a boardwalk,” he said.

In the 1920s, the planks were removed and replaced by asphalt.

“The Jamaica Railway was one of the first major rail lines of the Long Island Rail Road to come through Queens County and served as a transportation hub as it still does today,” said Antos. “That hub was responsible for bringing a lot of people into the neighborhood ... Jamaica was one of the original townships of Queens County and it became a major residential area.”

Under English rule, the former Dutch settlement became the center known as the “Township of Jamaica” and subsequently became the first county seat of Queens from 1656 to 1788. After the Revolutionary War, it became the first incorporated village on Long Island in 1814. Its boundaries extended from present-day Van Wyck Expressway to Farmers and Linden boulevards and by 1834, the Jamaica Rail Road completed its line to the township. Once Queens became part of the City of New York on Jan. 1, 1898, Jamaica became a county seat once again.

The transit hub has over 90 bus lines, the E, J, Z and F subway lines, and an AirTrain that connects to John F. Kennedy Airport.

By 1925, Jamaica had become a shopping hub.

“In the early 1900s, a lot of the farmlands were sold off because the families that lived there for 200 to 300 years started to die off,” said Antos. “The heirs to some of these families sometimes sold their land to developers for a lot of money.”

Planned communities were formed closer to Jamaica Estates and the houses were mostly Tudor-style, according to Antos.

“Then Jamaica Avenue became such a major commercial business district,” said Antos. “A lot of people worked and had their business on the avenue.”

As the neighborhood changed, the demographics did too, he said.

“It was a very Italian Roman Catholic and very Jewish neighborhood,” said Antos. “A lot of people from Manhattan and Brooklyn came into Jamaica and the immigration population started booming in the 1970s and 1980s because of immigration laws.”

The economic opportunities led to an increase in the African-American population, which has existed there since the early 1900s, and the migration of immigrants from Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean. By the late 1990s and 2000s, more IndoCaribbeans (mostly Guyanese), Southeast Asians (mostly Bangledeshis) and people from the Middle East (Pakistanis) started migrating to Jamaica.

“The food businesses started to be reflective of that,” Antos noted.

The 165 Business Improvement District, the Sutphin Business Improvement District, the Jamaica Center Business Improvement District and the Greater Jamaica Development Corp. are some of the entities that work to protect and grow the businesses in Jamaica.

“Our BID is going to continue to keep Jamaica Avenue clean and support our businesses,” said Trey Jenkins, a spokesman for the Jamaica Center BID founded in 1979. “Our BID will also focus on welcoming those who will be moving into the new apartment buildings throughout Downtown Jamaica to ensure that any new residents know what the Avenue has to offer in terms of both shops old and new.”

“GJDC was founded over 50 years ago when New York City was going through one of its greatest recessions, and helped Downtown Jamaica become a key component of the borough, city and metropolitan region economies,” said Justin Rodger, interim president of the GJDC. “Since the historic rezoning in 2007, Downtown Jamaica has been undergoing a renaissance. The GJDC has nurtured $1 billion of private and public-sector investment that has created nearly six million square feet of new residential, hotel and retail space.”

The GJDC mission is to bolster businesses and enhance the quality of life for the residents and workers, according to Rodger.

“While the pandemic has forced us to temporarily re-prioritize objectives, we plan to emerge from this global crisis stronger than before,” Rodger added about the coronavirus.

The GJDC was formed in 1967, the 165 BID was formed in 1978 and the Sutphin BID was formed in 2004.

A Better Jamaica and the Jamaica Center for Arts & Learning are two of the cultural staples downtown.

“In the summer of 2006, I went to Forest Park and watched ‘The Wizard of Oz,’” said Greg Mays, the founder of A Better Jamaica. “So I decided I needed to start a nonprofit. In January of 2007, I incorporated A Better Jamaica.”

The GJDC was the fiscal sponsor for A Better Jamaica for six months, according to Mays.

“Shortly, thereafter, we got our own 501(c) 3 status,” said Mays. “We started out later that summer showing two movies ... the rest is history and now we are about to be up to 16 or 17 programs.

“Pre-pandemic, the AirTrain Jazz Festival had 34 live jazz shows from October to May. We have a dance festival, which is four consecutive Saturdays in June, and we have two movie festivals,” said Mays.

The festivals include “Family Movies in the Park,” which displays 16 family-friendly movies throughout the summer, and “Classic Film Fridays,” which showcases films from a particular actor, director or genre, also over the summer.

A Better Jamaica also includes a reading program that has senior-citizen tutors helping first-graders with The AirTrain links Jamaica directly to

Pettits Hotel on Jamaica Avenue and Parsons Boulevard, the corner that is

now home to Jamaica Multiplex Cinemas. PHOTO COURTESY QUEENS HISTORICAL SOCIETY

JAMAICA