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Old Posted Apr 1, 2012, 9:15 PM
nygirl1 nygirl1 is offline
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The best of Queens: Part 14 Howard Beach

Heading further south through the borough

Howard Beach is a residential neighborhood in south western Queens. It sits on Cross Bay Boulevard which bisects the neighborhood overlooking Jamaica Bay. The neighborhood is home to a very large Italian community. The area was established in the years right before consolidation by a Brooklyn manufacturer named William J. Howard who had a farm in the area where he herded and raised goats. He bought more land surrounding his farm, much of it quite swampy, filled it in and built nearly 2 dozen cottages and a hotel which was later destroyed by fire. Several new streets were laid out, utilities were put in place and more houses followed. A population grew slowly, the community got a rail stop and post office in the early 1900’s. By this time the neighborhood was home to residential property north of the marshes and a smaller, fishing, bungalow community to the south. After the war and throughout the 1950’s the area saw a huge suburban building boom. Cooperative apartments popped up and Howard Beach became the ideal middle class suburb for NYC residents. The area took on a huge Italian population and was notorious for its connection to the Italian Mafia. John Gotti lived in the neighborhood on 85th Street. During the 1980’s the community became notorious for hate crimes against African Americans passing through the neighborhood. In 1986 Howard Beach gained much notoriety when 3 Black men’s vehicle got stranded on Cross Bay Boulevard. A group of Italian teens encircled them, beat them, screaming racial epithets. One man escaped, another was caught and beaten with baseball bats and a third was killed, hit by a car trying to escape the brutal attack. Things didn’t change a bit over the years and in 2005 a similar incident occurred with 3 young black men were assaulted with baseball bats by a group of Italian teens. In 2007 30-40 Black youth from Brooklyn entered Howard Beach and severely beat up 4 teens hanging out on the Boulevard.


















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