Fresh Pond was a small

middle class The middle class refers to a class of people in the middle of a social hierarchy, often defined by occupation, income, education, or social status. The term has historically been associated with modernity, capitalism and political debate. Commo ...

neighborhood in the

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

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 Ag ...

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 ...

, separated from Juniper Valley by the Lutheran and Mount Olivet cemeteries. In present day, it is now considered part of the surrounding neighborhoods of

Maspeth Maspeth is a residential and commercial community in the borough of Queens in New York City. It was founded in the early 17th century by Dutch and English settlers. Neighborhoods sharing borders with Maspeth are Woodside to the north; Sunnyside t ...

, Middle Village,

Glendale Glendale is the anglicised version of the Gaelic Gleann Dail, which means ''valley of fertile, low-lying arable land''. It may refer to: Places Australia * Glendale, New South Wales ** Stockland Glendale, a shopping centre *Glendale, Queensland, ...

, and Ridgewood (its neighbors to the northwest, northeast, southeast, and southwest, respectively) and is no longer referred to by the name "Fresh Pond." The area was originally named for two freshwater ponds that, in the early 1900s, were filled in. Other ponds were lower, and

brackish Brackish water, sometimes termed brack water, is water occurring in a natural environment that has more salinity than freshwater, but not as much as seawater. It may result from mixing seawater (salt water) and fresh water together, as in estuari ...

due to

Newtown Creek Newtown Creek, a long tributary of the East River, is an estuary that forms part of the border between the boroughs of Brooklyn and Queens, in New York City. Channelization made it one of the most heavily-used bodies of water in the Port of N ...

being estuarine. Its main streets, Fresh Pond Road, Metropolitan Avenue, Eliot Avenue and 61st Street, meet at the community's commercial center. Fresh Pond is served by the Fresh Pond Road and

Metropolitan Avenue Metropolitan Avenue is a major east-west street in Queens and northern Brooklyn, New York City. Its western end is at the East River in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, and the eastern end at Jamaica Avenue in Jamaica, Queens. The avenue was construct ...

stations of the

BMT Myrtle Avenue Line The Myrtle Avenue Line, also called the Myrtle Avenue Elevated, is a fully elevated line of the New York City Subway as part of the BMT division. The line is the last surviving remnant of one of the original Brooklyn elevated railroads. The rem ...

() of the

New York City Subway The New York City Subway is a rapid transit system owned by the government of New York City and leased to the New York City Transit Authority, an affiliate agency of the state-run Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA). Opened on October 2 ...

. It is also the home of the Fresh Pond Depot for MTA Bus and New York City Bus. A former

Long Island Rail Road The Long Island Rail Road , often abbreviated as the LIRR, is a commuter rail system in the southeastern part of the U.S. state of New York (state), New York, stretching from Manhattan to the eastern tip of Suffolk County, New York, Suffolk Co ...

freight station of the

Montauk Branch The Montauk Branch is a rail line owned and operated by the Long Island Rail Road in the U.S. state of New York. The branch runs the length of Long Island, 115 miles (185 km) from Long Island City on the west to Montauk on the east. How ...

and the

Fresh Pond Yard The New York City Transit Authority operates a total of 24 rail yards for the New York City Subway system, and one for the Staten Island Railway. There are 10 active A Division yards and 11 active B Division yards, two of which are shared betw ...

lie east of the corner of Metropolitan Avenue and Fresh Pond Road. The freight only

Bushwick Branch The Bushwick Branch, also called the Bushwick Lead Track, is a freight railroad branch in New York City. It runs from Bushwick in Brooklyn to Fresh Pond Junction in Glendale, Queens, where it connects with the Montauk Branch of the Long Islan ...

of the LIRR branches off below (west of) the Fresh Pond yard before crossing

Flushing Avenue Flushing Avenue is a street running through northern Brooklyn and western Queens, beginning at Nassau Street in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, and ending at Grand Avenue in Maspeth. It divides the neighborhood of Williamsburg from Clinton Hill an ...

. Freight cars interchange here with the

New York Connecting Railroad The New York Connecting Railroad or NYCR is a rail line in the borough of Queens in New York City. It links New York City and Long Island by rail directly to the North American mainland. Amtrak, CSX, Canadian Pacific Railway, Providence a ...

including those from Bay Ridge and the

New York Cross Harbor Railroad New York New Jersey Rail, LLC is a switching and terminal railroad that operates the only car float operation across Upper New York Bay between Jersey City, New Jersey and Brooklyn, New York. Since mid-November 2008, it has been owned by t ...

. Fresh Pond Road has existed for centuries. During the

American Revolutionary War The American Revolutionary War (April 19, 1775 – September 3, 1783), also known as the Revolutionary War or American War of Independence, was a major war of the American Revolution. Widely considered as the war that secured the independence of t ...

British forces The British Armed Forces, also known as His Majesty's Armed Forces, are the military forces responsible for the defence of the United Kingdom, its Overseas Territories and the Crown Dependencies. They also promote the UK's wider interests, s ...

pursued the

American military The United States Armed Forces are the military forces of the United States. The armed forces consists of six service branches: the Army, Marine Corps, Navy, Air Force, Space Force, and Coast Guard. The president of the United States is the ...

along Fresh Pond Road.Fresh Pond Road, Past and Present
. ''Times Union'' (Brooklyn, New York). May 4, 1901. p. 21.

References

Neighborhoods in Queens, New York Middle Village, Queens Maspeth, Queens Ridgewood, Queens {{QueensNY-geo-stub