KEW GARDENS
Geographic Setting
Bounded by the Van Wyck Expressway to the east, Hillside Avenue to the south, Babbage Street to the west, Forest Park to the northwest, and Union Turnpike to the north, Kew Gardens occupies a gently rolling landscape in central Queens—an elegant, self-contained neighborhood shaped by early 20th-century ideals of suburban planning. Set between Jamaica and Forest Hills, it is a place where winding roads, mature trees, and distinctive architecture create a tranquil enclave amid the borough’s urban bustle.
The neighborhood’s internal plan—defined by curving streets such as Metropolitan Avenue, Lefferts Boulevard, and Audley Street—was laid out to follow the area’s natural topography rather than the rigid city grid. Residential blocks of Tudor, Colonial, and Spanish Revival homes are interspersed with low-rise co-op buildings and prewar apartment houses, giving Kew Gardens a village-like scale and diversity of form. Lefferts Boulevard serves as the neighborhood’s main commercial spine, its shops, cafés, and small businesses gathered around the Kew Gardens LIRR Station, a stone-and-timber landmark that anchors the community both physically and historically. To the north, the forested slopes of Forest Park provide green refuge, while Union Turnpike and the Van Wyck Expressway connect Kew Gardens to the city beyond without compromising its residential calm.
Etymology and Origins
The name “Kew Gardens” was inspired by the famed Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew in London, reflecting the developers’ intention to evoke pastoral beauty and refinement. The neighborhood was founded in 1909 by Alrick Man, a lawyer and developer who envisioned a “garden suburb” for New York’s emerging professional class. His Kew Gardens Corporation purchased more than 500 acres of rolling farmland that had belonged to the Lefferts family—descendants of one of Queens’ oldest Dutch colonial settlers—and began transforming it into a carefully planned community that balanced nature, architecture, and accessibility.
From its inception, Kew Gardens was shaped by the Garden City movement, emphasizing curvilinear streets, landscaped medians, and architectural harmony. Strict deed restrictions governed building height, materials, and setbacks, ensuring that no structure would disrupt the neighborhood’s semi-rural aesthetic. The layout intentionally preserved trees and natural contours, while large lots and cohesive architectural styling created the sense of a unified, park-like district within the expanding metropolis.
The Neighborhood
Early 20th Century: The Garden Suburb Realized
Kew Gardens flourished in the 1910s through the 1930s as one of Queens’ most fashionable new residential developments. The arrival of the Long Island Rail Road station (1910) on Lefferts Boulevard transformed the area from an isolated tract into a convenient commuter haven—just 20 minutes from Manhattan yet surrounded by forest and fresh air. Early advertisements promised “country life within city limits,” appealing to professionals seeking retreat from urban congestion.
Architects such as Beresford Pratt and Cord Meyer contributed to the neighborhood’s aesthetic coherence through designs that blended English Tudor, Neo-Georgian, and Spanish Mission motifs. The Kew Bolmer Apartments (1915), one of the borough’s first elevator buildings, introduced higher-density housing without sacrificing the garden ideal. At the same time, the community’s social institutions—Kew Gardens Civic Association, Kew Gardens Community Church, and the Maple Grove Cemetery (dating to 1875, predating the neighborhood itself)—gave the area both social cohesion and historic depth.
During this period, Forest Park to the north was expanded under Robert Moses, enhancing Kew Gardens’ reputation as a green oasis. The park’s winding drives and bridle paths offered residents scenic leisure opportunities, while its trees formed a natural buffer that insulated the community from surrounding development.
Mid-20th Century: Civic Stability and Cultural Distinction
By the mid-20th century, Kew Gardens had matured into a stable, upper-middle-class neighborhood known for its civic involvement, architectural beauty, and quiet cosmopolitanism. The area’s housing stock expanded modestly with the addition of tasteful prewar co-op buildings and small postwar apartment houses, particularly along Union Turnpike and Metropolitan Avenue.
During the 1930s and 1940s, Kew Gardens became home to a mix of Jewish, Irish, and Italian families, many of whom had relocated from Brooklyn and Manhattan. The neighborhood’s tree-lined streets and good schools attracted families seeking permanence, while its proximity to Jamaica’s courts and government offices drew attorneys, civil servants, and educators. The Kew Gardens Inn and later the Homestead Hotel became landmarks for visitors, while Lefferts Boulevard remained the neighborhood’s intimate commercial heart.
In the postwar years, the completion of the Van Wyck Expressway (1950) and Union Turnpike underpass improved automobile access but also redefined the area’s boundaries. Yet unlike many other Queens neighborhoods, Kew Gardens avoided overdevelopment, maintaining its small-scale, walkable charm. The nearby Queens Borough Hall, opened in 1940, further affirmed the area’s centrality to borough administration and identity.
Kew Gardens also became known for its cultural associations: it was the home of Governor Mario Cuomo, whose family settled there in the 1950s, and featured prominently in Alfred Hitchcock’s “Strangers on a Train” (1951), filmed partially at the local station—an enduring symbol of its cinematic quaintness.
Late 20th–21st Century: Preservation, Diversity, and Renewal
By the late 20th century, Kew Gardens faced the twin pressures of modernization and preservation. As Queens diversified, so did the neighborhood’s population, welcoming Russian, Israeli, Caribbean, and South Asian residents alongside long-established Jewish and Italian families. The Kew Gardens Civic Association—founded in 1914 and among the borough’s oldest—played a crucial role in maintaining zoning protections that prevented the proliferation of high-rise development.
Community identity has continued to revolve around its landmarks: the Kew Gardens Cinemas (opened 1935, still operating as an independent art house), the LIRR Stationhouse, and the Lefferts Boulevard Bridge, whose vintage Tudor structures remain touchstones of neighborhood pride. The Kew Gardens Interchange Reconstruction Project (2010s) modernized traffic flow while preserving accessibility to the surrounding parks and residential streets.
In recent years, the area has experienced modest revitalization rather than upheaval. Small cafés, bookstores, and global eateries have opened along Lefferts Boulevard and Metropolitan Avenue, while residents have led greening projects and historic preservation initiatives. The architectural continuity—stone façades, peaked roofs, and leafy courtyards—remains one of the most intact in Queens. Proximity to Forest Park and the Union Turnpike–Kew Gardens subway station ensures that, even as New York evolves, Kew Gardens retains its rare blend of accessibility and repose.
Spirit and Legacy
Kew Gardens endures as one of Queens’ most graceful and self-contained neighborhoods—an embodiment of the early 20th-century dream of “garden living within the city.” Its curved lanes, mature trees, and cohesive architecture evoke a sense of timelessness, while its diversity and civic vitality anchor it firmly in the present.
At dusk, as the trains glide quietly beneath the Tudor bridge and the lamps along Lefferts Boulevard glow against the canopy of elms, Kew Gardens reveals its enduring charm: a neighborhood born from design and sustained by community, where the ideals of beauty, order, and belonging continue to guide life on the hill between the city and the park.
New York City
Use this custom Google map to explore where every neighborhood in all five boroughs of New York City is located.
The Five Boroughs
One of New York City’s unique qualities is its organization in to 5 boroughs: Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, The Bronx, and Staten Island. These boroughs are part pragmatic administrative districts, and part vestiges of the region’s past. Each borough is an entire county in New York State - in fact, Brooklyn is, officially, Kings County, while Staten Island is, officially Richmond County. But that’s not the whole story …
Initially, New York City was located on the southern tip of Manhattan (now the Financial District) that was once the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam. Across the East River, another city was rising: Brooklyn. In time, the city planners realized that unification between the rapidly rising cities would create commercial and industrial opportunities - through streamlined administration of the region.
So powerful was the pull of unification between New York and Brooklyn that three more counties were pulled into the unification: The Bronx, Queens, and Staten Island. And on January 1, 1898, the City of New York unified two cities and three counties into one Greater City of New York - containing the five boroughs we know today.
But because each borough developed differently and distinctly until unification, their neighborhoods likewise uniquely developed. Today, there are nearly 390 neighborhoods, each with their own histories, cultures, cuisines, and personalities - and each with residents who are fiercely proud of their corner of The Big Apple.
