MIDDLE VILLAGE, QUEENS

'Middle Village' is a neighborhood in central Queens, a borough of New York City. The neighborhood is located in the western central section of Queens, bounded to the north by the Long Island Expressway (LIE), to the east by Woodhaven Boulevard, to the south by Cooper Avenue, and to the west by Lutheran Cemetery. Middle Village borders Elmhurst to the North, Maspeth and Ridgewood to the West, Glendale to the South, and Rego Park to the East. In 2003, "South Elmhurst", an area between Eliot Avenue and the LIE, was "annexed" to Middle Village and given its postal code 11379. The neighborhood is part of Queens Community Board 5.^[1]

Contents

About Middle Village

Famous dead

Crime and safety

Demographics

Schools

References

External links

See also

About Middle Village

The area was named in the early nineteenth-century for its location as the mid-point between Williamsburg, Brooklyn; and the Jamaica Turnpike. Middle Village is served by Juniper Valley Park, which is a large public park built on what was once called Juniper Swamp (filled in 1915). Originally composed of Western European immigrants, primarily German, Irish, and Italian. Today the neighborhood is much more ethnically diverse.

Famous dead

St. John's Cemetery, Queens, a cemetery located in Middle Village, holds many famed mobsters, including John Gotti and Lucky Luciano. Fitness guru Charles Atlas and photographer Robert Mapplethorpe are also interred there. The General Slocum Steamboat Fire Mass Memorial, commemorating one of the worst disasters in NYC's history, is at Lutheran All Faiths Cemetery (67-29 Metropolitan Avenue).

Crime and safety

Middle Village is a relatively safe, working class neighborhood in the borough of Queens. In the 1970s and early 1980s, as in other parts of the US, drug trafficking held a high presence in this neighborhood. There has always been a widely held belief that low level organized crime maintained control of this town. The early 1990s brought about a major urban renewal of all its parks and green spaces. This has created a safer more inviting place to live. These days burglary and car theft are rare, and the area is relatively safe.

Demographics

The Middle Village population is predominantly White. As of 2000, the neighborhood's population is 89.5% White^[2]. However, over the past years, the neighborhood has had an increasing amount of Asian residents. A good majority of the residents in Middle Village are Italian American, although there are smaller Irish, Jewish, Polish, Albanian, and Hispanic populations in the area as well.

Schools

PS 49 and PS 128 are elementary schools in Middle Village with grades K to 5. PS 87 is an elementary and junior high school with grades K to 8. Our Lady of Hope is a Catholic school with grades K to 8. St. Margaret is also a Catholic elementary school grades K-8.
Christ The King Regional High School is a private school. It is also nationally-known as the home of the Royals Boy's and Girl's basketball teams, with a total of 13 Federation Championships spanning the last 16 years. Christ The King Regional High School is also the home of one of the City's best forensics teams, sending students to the National Forensics Championships annually. Over the past five years, the team has gone through several coaching changes, though the current team is headed by veteran coach Anton Jans.

References

1. Queens Community Boards, New York City. Accessed September 3, 2007.
2. Zip Code Tabulation Area 11379, United States Census Bureau

External links

★ Middle Village Online

See also

★ List of Queens neighborhoods