Our Community

Howard Beach is a neighborhood in the southwestern portion of the New York City borough of Queens. It is bordered to the north by the Belt Parkway and Conduit Avenue in Ozone Park, to the south by Jamaica Bay in Broad Channel, to the east by 102nd–104th Streets in South Ozone Park, and to the west by 75th Street in East New York, Brooklyn. The area consists mostly of low-rise single-family houses.

Howard Beach is located in Queens Community District 10 and its ZIP Code is 11414.It is patrolled by the New York City Police Department's 106th Precinct. Politically, Howard Beach is represented by the New York City Council's 32nd District.

An area now part of Ozone Park that pre-dated that community was called "Centreville". It was founded in the 1840s and was centered around Centreville Street and the Centreville Community Church. Part of Ozone Park is still called "Centreville".

In the 1870s, two immigrants from France named Charles Lalance and Florian Grosjean established a factory in Woodhaven where they manufactured cooking materials and porcelain enamelware, but burned down in 1876. Lalance and Grosjean built a second factory, as well as a hundred houses for workers, at Atlantic Avenue and 92nd Street in modern-day Ozone Park.

During the 1870s, an economic depression caused residents of New York City to look for better housing opportunities in the suburbs of Manhattan and Brooklyn, where housing would be cheaper. In 1880, the New York, Woodhaven & Rockaway Railroad began service on the Montauk Branch and Rockaway Beach Branch from Long Island City to Howard Beach, Queens.Two years later, two wealthy partners named Benjamin W. Hitchcock and Charles C. Denton bought plots of land around what would later become the Woodhaven Junction station. The Rockaway Beach Branch's Ozone Park station opened in 1883.

Advertisements for Ozone Park proclaimed that the development had "pure air" and "no malaria". Ozone Park was called "the Harlem of Brooklyn" because at the time, as Harlem was a thriving Jewish and Italian neighborhood. Hitchcock and Denton chose the "Ozone Park" name because in the 1880s, ozone was associated with breezes from the sea, and the Atlantic Ocean was located nearby.

Howard Beach was established in 1897 by William J. Howard, a Brooklyn glove manufacturer who operated a 150-acre (61 ha) goat farm on meadow land near Aqueduct Racetrack as a source of skin for kid gloves. In 1897, he bought more land and filled it in and the following year, built 18 cottages and opened a hotel near the water, which he operated until it was destroyed by fire in October 1907. He gradually bought more land and formed the Howard Estates Development Company in 1909. He dredged and filled the land until he was able to accumulate 500 acres (200 ha) by 1914. He laid out several streets, water mains and gas mains, and built 35 houses that were priced in the $2,500–$5,000 range.

The Long Island Rail Road established a station named Ramblersville in 1905 and a Post Office by the same name opened soon thereafter. A casino, beach, and fishing pier were added in 1915 and the name of the neighborhood was changed to Howard Beach on April 6, 1916. Development continued and ownership was expanded to a group of investors who sold lots for about $690 each starting in 1922. Development, however, was limited to the areas east of Cross Bay Boulevard near the LIRR station now known as Bernard Coleman Memorial Square (then Lilly Place). The rest of Howard Beach consisted of empty marsh land except for the area to the south of Coleman Square, centered around Russell St. and 102nd Street, which consisted of many small fishing bungalows that dotted alongside Hawtree Creek and Jamaica Bay. This area of Howard Beach would retain the name "Ramblersville." Despite its close proximity to the Howard Beach station at Coleman Square, the LIRR would establish a station a quarter of a mile south down the line at Hamilton Beach in 1919.

After World War II, Queens and Long Island went through a major suburban building boom leading to the marsh land west of Cross Bay Boulevard to be filled in. This led to the development of many Cape-Cod and High-Ranch style houses on 50-by-100-foot (15 by 30 m) and 60-by-100-foot (18 by 30 m) lots. This area was developed as "Rockwood Park" to the north and "Spring Park" to the south, together comprising what would be known as "New Howard Beach", while the area east of the boulevard became known as "Old Howard Beach." In the early 1950s farm land north of Rockwood Park was developed with the building of many red-bricked two-story garden style cooperative apartments along with some six-story co-op and condo apartment buildings. A number of private two-family houses were also built in this neighborhood, which was named Lindenwood. The various neighborhoods continued to be developed through the 1960s and 1970s as Cross Bay Boulevard became the area's main shopping district. During the 1990s and 2000s, there was further high-scale development as many of the area's old houses were torn down and replaced with upscale million-dollar mini-mansions.