Briarwood is a
middle-class neighborhood in the
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...
borough
A borough is an administrative division in various English-speaking countries. In principle, the term ''borough'' designates a self-governing walled town, although in practice, official use of the term varies widely.
History
In the Middle A ...
of
Queens
Queens is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Queens County, in the U.S. state of New York. Located on Long Island, it is the largest New York City borough by area. It is bordered by the borough of Brooklyn at the western tip of Long ...
. The neighborhood is roughly bounded by the
Van Wyck Expressway
Interstate 678 (I-678) is a north–south auxiliary Interstate Highway that extends for through two boroughs of New York City. The route begins at John F. Kennedy International Airport on Jamaica Bay and travels north through Queens and ...
to the west,
Parsons Boulevard
Parsons Boulevard is a road in Queens, New York. Its northern end is at Malba Drive in the Malba neighborhood and its southern end is at Archer Avenue in downtown Jamaica.
Route
The road stretches for nearly six miles, divided into four segmen ...
to the east,
Union Turnpike to the north, and
Hillside Avenue Hillside may refer to the side of a hill.
Places Australia
* Hillside mine, a proposed mine on the Yorke Peninsula, South Australia
* Hillside, New South Wales
*Hillside, Victoria, a suburb of Melbourne
Canada
* Hillside, Nova Scotia
United Ki ...
to the south.
Briarwood is named for the Briarwood Land Company, headed by Herbert A. O'Brien, who started developing the area in the first decade of the 20th century. Today, Briarwood contains a diverse community of Asian-American, white American, Hispanic/Latino, and African American and Afro-Caribbean residents. It is part of
Queens Community Board 8
The Queens Community Board 8 is a local government in the New York City borough of Queens, encompassing the neighborhoods of Briarwood, Cunningham Heights, Flushing South, Fresh Meadows, Hillcrest, Hilltop Village, Holliswood, Jamaica Estates ...
.
Geography
Briarwood, located northwest of downtown
Jamaica
Jamaica (; ) is an island country situated in the Caribbean Sea. Spanning in area, it is the third-largest island of the Greater Antilles and the Caribbean (after Cuba and Hispaniola). Jamaica lies about south of Cuba, and west of His ...
, contains one of the highest points in Queens. It is located approximately between the
Van Wyck Expressway
Interstate 678 (I-678) is a north–south auxiliary Interstate Highway that extends for through two boroughs of New York City. The route begins at John F. Kennedy International Airport on Jamaica Bay and travels north through Queens and ...
(
I-678
Interstate 678 (I-678) is a north–south auxiliary Interstate Highway that extends for through two boroughs of New York City. The route begins at John F. Kennedy International Airport on Jamaica Bay and travels north through Queens and ...
) to the west,
Union Turnpike to the north,
Parsons Boulevard
Parsons Boulevard is a road in Queens, New York. Its northern end is at Malba Drive in the Malba neighborhood and its southern end is at Archer Avenue in downtown Jamaica.
Route
The road stretches for nearly six miles, divided into four segmen ...
to the east, and
Hillside Avenue Hillside may refer to the side of a hill.
Places Australia
* Hillside mine, a proposed mine on the Yorke Peninsula, South Australia
* Hillside, New South Wales
*Hillside, Victoria, a suburb of Melbourne
Canada
* Hillside, Nova Scotia
United Ki ...
(
NY 25
New York State Route 25 (NY 25) is an east–west state highway in downstate New York in the United States. The route extends for just over from east midtown Manhattan in New York City to the Cross Sound Ferry terminal at Orient Po ...
) to the south.
Demographics
Briarwood is a diverse community, according to 2010 census data that groups Briarwood with neighboring Jamaica Hills, the population consists of
Asian-Americans (14.4%),
White
White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no hue). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully reflect and scatter all the visible wavelengths of light. White o ...
(26.7%),
Hispanic
The term ''Hispanic'' ( es, hispano) refers to people, cultures, or countries related to Spain, the Spanish language, or Hispanidad.
The term commonly applies to countries with a cultural and historical link to Spain and to viceroyalties forme ...
s (29.3%), and
African American
African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...
s (33.3%).
This is a marked change from the post-
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...
period (1950s–1980s) when the neighborhood was almost exclusively white, with a large and active Jewish community. Economic activity is mostly confined to small restaurants, delis, markets, and other small businesses.
The neighborhood contains housing for middle-class families.
Education
![BriarwoodQueensSchools](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/11/BriarwoodQueensSchools.jpg)
Briarwood is home to the Catholic
Archbishop Molloy High School
Archbishop Molloy High School (also called Molloy, Archbishop Molloy, or AMHS) is a co-educational, college preparatory, Catholic school for grades 9-12, located on on 83-53 Manton Street, Briarwood, Queens, New York. It is part of the Roman C ...
, which moved to Briarwood from the Upper East Side in 1957. Some of the school's more famous alumni are
New York Governor
The governor of New York is the head of government of the U.S. state of New York. The governor is the head of the executive branch of New York's state government and the commander-in-chief of the state's military forces. The governor ha ...
Andrew Cuomo
Andrew Mark Cuomo ( ; ; born December 6, 1957) is an American lawyer and politician who served as the 56th governor of New York from 2011 to 2021. A member of the Democratic Party, he was elected to the same position that his father, Mario Cu ...
, actor
David Caruso
David Stephen Caruso (born January 7, 1956) is a retired American actor and producer, best known for his roles as Detective John Kelly on the ABC crime drama ''NYPD Blue'' (1993–94) and Lieutenant Horatio Caine on the CBS series ''CSI: Mi ...
, former New York City Police Commissioner
Raymond Kelly
Raymond Walter Kelly (born September 4, 1941) is the longest serving Commissioner in the history of the New York City Police Department (NYPD) and the first man to hold the post for two non-consecutive tenures. According to its website, Kelly ...
, NBA professional basketball players
Kenny Smith
Kenneth Smith (born March 8, 1965), nicknamed "the Jet", is an American sports commentator and former professional basketball player in the National Basketball Association (NBA). He played in the NBA from 1987 to 1997 as a member of the Sacrame ...
and
Kenny Anderson and professional wrestler
Colin Cassady. Also the infamous Serrao brothers from Richmond Hill, Queens. The school is named in honor of
Archbishop Thomas Molloy. It has about 1,550 students.
Also located in Briarwood is Robert A. Van Wyck M.S. 217Q, a middle school of 1,300 students in grades 6–8. The school was established in 1955 and was named after the first mayor of the
Greater City of New York,
Robert A. Van Wyck, a
Tammany Hall
Tammany Hall, also known as the Society of St. Tammany, the Sons of St. Tammany, or the Columbian Order, was a New York City political organization founded in 1786 and incorporated on May 12, 1789 as the Tammany Society. It became the main loc ...
lawyer.
Transportation
The neighborhood is served by the
IND Queens Boulevard Line of the
New York City Subway at the
Briarwood station (). In that subway station, there were many paintings done by the students of Archbishop Molloy High School, M.S. 217Q, an
P.S.117Qduring the mid-1980s. They are titled, "Beautifying Briarwood". The paintings were removed during a renovation of the station in 2014.
History
The neighborhood is named for the Briarwood Land Company, headed by Herbert A. O'Brien, which built housing there around 1905 or 1907.
O'Brien decided on the name Briarwood because of the
bramble
A bramble is any rough, tangled, prickly shrub, usually in the genus ''Rubus'', which grows blackberries, raspberries, or dewberries. "Bramble" is also used to describe other prickly shrubs, such as roses (''Rosa'' species). The fruits inclu ...
s in its thick woods.
[ The Ottilie Orphan Home was built on 148th Street in 1906.][ The Briarwood Land Company went bankrupt soon afterward, however, and the area was largely empty until 1924 when it was divided and sold at auction. Land went for $300 each for inside residential lots to $2,800 for lots along ]Queens Boulevard
Queens Boulevard is a major thoroughfare in the New York City borough of Queens connecting Midtown Manhattan, via the Queensboro Bridge, to Jamaica. It is long and forms part of New York State Route 25.
Queens Boulevard runs northwest to s ...
. Over the next four years, several single-family homes were built on the land.[ Briarwood's first school, P.S. 117, was built in 1927.][ Additional land was auctioned in 1928.][
On May 30, 1928, about 500 members of the Klansmen of Queens assembled in the forest of Briarwood.] They burned a 50-foot cross, sang songs, and gave speeches.[ When police officers arrived, the group's leader, Major Emmett J. Smith, said that they had the right to assemble and speak on the land, because they had signed a lease to the land the previous day.][ The group soon left the area, without any physical violence or arrests having taken place.][
In 1936, a company called Briarwood Estates, owned by Leon, Morty and A. B. Wolosoff, started building ]Colonial
Colonial or The Colonial may refer to:
* Colonial, of, relating to, or characteristic of a colony or colony (biology)
Architecture
* American colonial architecture
* French Colonial
* Spanish Colonial architecture
Automobiles
* Colonial (1920 au ...
and old English
Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers in the mid-5th c ...
-style homes north of 84th Drive and west of Main Street. The homes sold for about $5,000, the . After World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...
ended, other developers built houses closer to Parsons Boulevard
Parsons Boulevard is a road in Queens, New York. Its northern end is at Malba Drive in the Malba neighborhood and its southern end is at Archer Avenue in downtown Jamaica.
Route
The road stretches for nearly six miles, divided into four segmen ...
.[
The ]United Nations
The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be a centre for harmoniz ...
built Parkway Village, a 670-unit development, as housing for its employees around 1947. The development is along Union Turnpike, between Main Street and Parsons Boulevard
Parsons Boulevard is a road in Queens, New York. Its northern end is at Malba Drive in the Malba neighborhood and its southern end is at Archer Avenue in downtown Jamaica.
Route
The road stretches for nearly six miles, divided into four segmen ...
.[ Parkway Village is now a ]co-op
A cooperative (also known as co-operative, co-op, or coop) is "an autonomous association of persons united voluntarily to meet their common economic, social and cultural needs and aspirations through a jointly owned and democratically-control ...
and no longer connected to the United Nations.[
On November 23, 1954, Main Street's extension south to ]Queens Boulevard
Queens Boulevard is a major thoroughfare in the New York City borough of Queens connecting Midtown Manhattan, via the Queensboro Bridge, to Jamaica. It is long and forms part of New York State Route 25.
Queens Boulevard runs northwest to s ...
opened, and apartments were built in the neighborhood around the same time.[
]
Notable residents
Notable residents of Briarwood have included:
* Ralph Bunche, United States diplomat who received the 1950 Nobel Peace Prize
The Nobel Peace Prize is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the will of Swedish industrialist, inventor and armaments (military weapons and equipment) manufacturer Alfred Nobel, along with the prizes in Chemistry, Physics, Physiolog ...
for his mediation in Israel
Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...
in the late 1940s
* Betty Friedan
Betty Friedan ( February 4, 1921 – February 4, 2006) was an American feminist writer and activist. A leading figure in the women's movement in the United States, her 1963 book ''The Feminine Mystique'' is often credited with sparking the se ...
, author of ''The Feminine Mystique
''The Feminine Mystique'' is a book by Betty Friedan, widely credited with sparking second-wave feminism in the United States. First published by W. W. Norton on February 19, 1963, ''The Feminine Mystique'' became a bestseller, initially selling o ...
'', which sparked the second wave of feminism
Second-wave feminism was a period of feminist activity that began in the early 1960s and lasted roughly two decades. It took place throughout the Western world, and aimed to increase equality for women by building on previous feminist gains.
W ...
* Steve Hofstetter, radio personality and comedian
* John Kerwin, talk show host of ''The John Kerwin Show
''The John Kerwin Show'' was an American monthly talk show filmed in Los Angeles, California. The show was broadcast on JLTV, and featured on YouTube.
History
The John Kerwin Show was originally formatted as a late-night talk show.
Beginning i ...
''[Garron, Barry.]
Eyes on the Prize
", ''Emmy Magazine'', January 2008.
* Hanna Rosin
Hanna Rosin (born 1970) is an Israeli-born American writer. She is the editorial director for audio for ''New York Magazine'' Formerly, she was the co-host of the NPR podcast Invisibilia with Alix Spiegel. She was co-founder of DoubleX, the no ...
, U.S. journalist and author of ''God's Harvard''
* Steven Weber
Steven Robert Weber (born March 4, 1961) is an American actor and comedian. He is best known for his role as Brian Hackett on the television series ''Wings'' which aired from April 1990 to May 1997 on NBC, as Sam Blue in '' Once and Again'', and ...
, actor who appeared on many television series including ''As the World Turns
''As the World Turns'' (often abbreviated as ''ATWT'') is an American television soap opera that aired on CBS for 54 years from April 2, 1956, to September 17, 2010. Irna Phillips created ''As the World Turns'' as a sister show to her other s ...
'', ''Wings
A wing is a type of fin that produces lift while moving through air or some other fluid. Accordingly, wings have streamlined cross-sections that are subject to aerodynamic forces and act as airfoils. A wing's aerodynamic efficiency is expre ...
'', '' iZombie'', and '' NCIS: New Orleans''.
See also
*
References
{{Authority control
Neighborhoods in Queens, New York
Kew Gardens, Queens