Poppenhusen

College Point is a weird neighborhood — not commenting on the denizens, but its geography. It is stuck way out there in a far northern corner of Queens
It is quite isolated, too, cut off from the rest of the borough's northeastern by I-678, the Whitestone Expressway, and served only by an unreliable bus line, the Q15, making cars essential. Its streets are uniformly very narrow, its houses small. It does have  MacNeil Park, a great greensward abutting the East River, according to one map, though I think of that water as Long Island Sound. From a promontory in the park there is a great view of Manhattan (great being relative; I remember the weekend of September 8-9, 2001, we went to the park and saw the Twin Towers, which were tragically missing the next time we went to MacNeil Park, soon after 9/11 —that has remained with me all these years).


Today I went to the Walgreen's in College Point to get a shingles shot. It is on the corner of 14th Avenue and College Point Boulevard; that is what I think of as the center of the neighborhood. I parked on 123rd Street, and went for my shot. The process was easy enough.

After, I went for a walk in the neighborhood. Today wasn't anywhere near the 90º plus temperatures of the last few days, though some humidity remained. I walked along College Point Boulevard, and soon came upon Poppenhusen Park.

To the right are a few benches, a rarity: public seating not in a park (alas, they abut College Point Boulevard, a busy thoroughfare). Inside the park stands a statue of College Point's benefactor.

Conrad Poppenhusen was a German immigrant who manufactured whale bone goods, before moving onto producing hard rubber goods (licensed by Charles Goodyear). As I recall, though I can not find that information. Poppenhusen made another fortune manufacturing hard rubber butons for Union soldiers during the Civil War.


College Point was named after  St. Paul's College, a seminary founded in 1835 by the Rev. William Augustus Muhlenberg.The college closed around 1850. When Conrad Poppenhusen arrived in 1854 he was already a prosperous manufacturer in Brooklyn of hard rubber goods and expanded his operation to this small farming community. College Point became a factory town primarily for his workers, most of them also German immigrants, and the tycoon became a philanthropist, contributing to churches, libraries, and the Poppenhusen Institute, an educational beacon of College Point. Poppenhusen is responsible for the first free kindergarten in America. He connected College Point to Flushing by the Flushing and North Side Railroad, later called Whitestone Branch. A monument on College Point Boulevard, one of the main streets in College Point, stands testament to Poppenhusen. College Point became a center for breweries and day trip resorts, and in the 1920s shifted towards the manufacturing of airplane parts.

Despite its geographic isolation and poor transportation options, the neighborhood participates in the  current real estate boom. I walked past a small house by 5th Avenue and College Point Boulevard which is listed for $750,000. I was amazed to see that number/