Fresh Pond was a small
middle class neighborhood in the
New York City borough of
Queens, 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 ...
,
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 estuar ...
due to
Newtown Creek 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 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 re ...
() of the
New York City Subway. 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, stretching from Manhattan to the eastern tip of Suffolk County on Long Island. With an average wee ...
freight station of the
Montauk Branch 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 bet ...
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 a ...
. 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 ...
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 b ...
.
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, su ...
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