Flushing Heights Civic Association

FLUSHING HEIGHTS?

Feb 23, 2002

Oftentimes people ask about our name, Flushing Heights. Most of us who live in the community call it either Flushing, Fresh Meadows, and even Hillcrest. We know that our organization?’s name was established when we were formed in 1940. At that time, we covered a smaller area, north of 73rd Avenue and south of Horace Harding.
In 1998, a Fresh Meadows Times/Ledger article highlighted our area and the name?’s derivation. A subsequent letter from Walter Kowsh, Jr., a former resident of Flushing Heights, revealed that the name goes back to at least 1910 when it appeared in the ?“Hyde 1910 Rapid Transit and Development Map of the Borough of Manhattan, Bronx, Brooklyn, and Queens?”. The location appears to be our original boundaries with 164th Street on the west and Utopia Parkway on the east, although street names differed then. This map, and older ones, can be found in the Long Island Room at the Central Queens Borough Library in Jamaica.
One tidbit Mr. Kowsh reveals is that the area was called ?“Kerosene Heights?” by the locals because it was the last neighborhood in Flushing to be electrified.

For those of you who are new to our neighborhood, and for residents who are not familiar with us, the Flushing Heights Civic has been here since 1940. Subsequent to it?’s founding, the boundaries were expanded south to Union Turnpike. We were one of the last civic associations to maintain a paid security patrol which lasted from 1985 to 2000, when we could no longer afford it. We hope you will consider joining.