Francis Lewis

Northernmost eastern Queens is a section called Whitestone. The Throgs Neck and Bronx-Whitestone bridges connect it and southeast  Bronx. Francis Lewis, a member of the Committee of Sixty, delegate to the Continental Congress, and signer of the Declaration of Independence, lived in the area. A boulevard and a high school in Queens are named after him, which seems small regard for such an important patriot. Francis Lewis Boulevard stretches the length of the borough, running north-south its entire length, surely one of the few streets, if not the only one, to do so. A few people refer to the street and the school as Frannie Lew, yet it all seems insufficient praise, though he is hardly the only one of the Founding Brothers generation to be so lightly regarded. Who was Rufus King? Cadwallader Colden?

Looking at a map of the north shore of Long Island, where Queens and Nassau Counties meet, three necks jut out into Long Island Sound; these were part of the Gold Coast which F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote of in his classic American novel, The Great Gatsby. Whitestone is one of these necks.

North shore of LI map

Arthur Hammerstein, lesser known second son of Oscar I and brother of  the quite famous Oscar II, built a house in Whitestone in 1924 (according to an NYT article from 1988), which he named after a successful Broadway musical his brother wrote and he produced, Wildflower. He did not own it for long; in 1930 (as the Great Depression deepened) he sold it. Over the years it was hostage to vagaries of New York real estate and other social trends.

I recall going there in the mid-1970s when I was attending Queensborough Community College (as it was called then), for some sort of student government shindig (I date myself with that word, if with nothing else). I clearly remember ordering a tequila sunrise, quite a popular drink in those days, and I distinctly remember the barkeep bemoaning how none of us ordered a real drink, until someone ordered a scotch and soda (surely a faculty member, or a member of that generation), which brought a resounding snort of approval from him.

These days Wildflower is a gated community (ach, another pet peeve of mine, that term, right up there with experience). There is a fence and a gate which keep riffraff and other undesirables outside its confines. Yesterday I got as close as one can without violating such strictures, and with my handy, if failing, iPhone 6 plus, took a couple of photos of the house.

Tudor in style and a rare type in New York, the Times article said the mansion mixes stucco and half-timber work in the gables with patterned brick designs in the rest of the facade, which I agree with entirely. Not it, but the rest of the area's newfangled edifices stick out as sore thumbs. But these are the sentiments of a curmudgeon, I readily admit.

Alas, the area utterly lacks anyplace to eat. So I went home for a late lunch. How I wished I could have found a taco, or a nice hot bowl of pho.