A New Home
22 AUGUST 2 0 2 1
Photos courtesy of QCA
Photo: GAHS
Queens Center
on the Arts (QCA)
opened its new
multipurpose space
in Long Island City
featuring artist studios,
a performance
space and staff offices
devoted to
supporting the borough’s
diverse arts
community.
At the new facility,
young emerging
art students
can already be
found participating
in classes through
QCA’s High to
School Arts School
(HS2AS), a free program for high school students
to help them gain acceptance into competitive art
colleges.
QCA’s new home, replacing a cramped office
space on Steinway Street in Astoria, is located on
the ground floor of the Maximillian Building at
5-11 47th Ave.
The organization provides funding to a wide array
of individuals and art groups. QCA also offers
professional development and other resources for
Queens artists, who represent nearly 160 nationalities.
In the past year, QCA has directly served approximately
3,200 individual artists, 60 art organizations
and an audience of nearly 550,000 throughout
the borough.
“Queens artists have a new place to call home, a
place where they will be recognized as being at the
center of our community,” QCA Executive Director
Hoong Lee Krakauer said. “Our new location is designed
to be inclusive, fully accessible and welcoming
to the different needs of artists in our diverse
borough. We are thrilled to open our doors and
welcome HS2AS as the first of many programs and
artists to join us in Long Island City.”
Founded in 1966, QCA is now at the center of a
vibrant local arts scene, just a block away from the
Long Island City waterfront and the restaurants and
businesses on Vernon Boulevard.
The multipurpose facility includes expanded
space to host programming and workshops for artists
to create, fund and showcase their art.
In addition to the HS2AS, QCA is celebrating its
2021 Queens Arts Fund grantees — 163 artists and
nonprofit organizations that have been awarded
grants to offer distinctive arts and cultural programming
that directly serves the borough’s residents.
“It has been a challenging year for so many across
Queens, especially our local artists,” QCA Board of
Trustees Interim President Joe LoBello said. “This is
an incredible milestone for QCA, and symbolic of
New York City’s reopening.”
For more information on QCA, visit queenscouncilarts.org.
ARTS + ENTERTAINMENT
Legends of Sunnyside
The Brewster Building
BY GREATER ASTORIA HISTORICAL SOCIETY
The following history of the Brewster Building, which now
houses JetBlue, was sent by the late Alan Baum to the Greater
Astoria Historical Society years ago. Baum’s father was a key
employee Tof the Brewster Automobile Company. he Brewster Carriage
Company was founded
by James Brewster, a direct
descendant of Elder
William Brewster of the
Plymouth Colony. He was
born in 1788 and while he could
have gone to the college of his
choice, he was a disciple of Benjamin
Franklin and chose to apprentice
himself to a carriage maker
in Northampton, MA, at age 15.
In 1810 he opened his own business.
He had two sons, James and
Henry, who took over the business
when he retired in 1856.
Henry enjoyed the good life and
moved the headquarters to New
York City. Henry had a son, William
Brewster, who, like his grandfather,
refused college and apprenticed
himself to the company at $5 a
week in 1883. In 1898, my father,
12 years old, joined the firm as office
boy. At that time, the firm was
located in Times Square.
The firm had been enormously
successful. One of the stories told
is that someone once remarked
that Brewster's was the Tiffany of
the carriage companies. Another
person is said to have replied that
quite the contrary, “Tiffany is the
Brewster’s of the jewelry business.”
Brewster’s slowly shifted from carriages
to automobiles in the early
twentieth century.
In 1910, William moved the
headquarters and facilities to Long
Island City and built the Brewster
Building on Queens Plaza. During
World War I, Brewster was involved
in aviation. At that time, their main
product was propellers, which were
made of wood. They were experts
at woodworking.
In the mid-‘20s, Brewster became
more involved in aviation and my
father headed that division. By
1932, the Brewster business was
in trouble because of the depression
and in the mid-‘30s, the business
decided to close. My father
handled the closure and managed
the building for the family.
One of the tenants in the building
was Diorama Corporation,
which made a diorama of New
York City for the 1939-40 World’s
Fair. Every building in the diorama
was replicated in miniature as
it was, even if it was under construction.
It was fascinating to see
the changes they would make on
a weekly basis.
My father was responsible for
distributing the records and documents
to varied museums. I remember
one was a promissory note
signed by Abraham Lincoln for a
carriage he was purchasing with
time payments.
There was great old Americana:
things like the first license plate
ever issued by the state of New
Jersey and priceless old coaching
horns. I do know that some went
to the Ford Museum because in
1937 or 1938, Henry Ford came to
our house in Flushing to thank my
father, whom he knew, for sending
them to him. Henry Ford stayed the
day and had dinner with my family.
The Brewster Building lost its
clock tower in the 1960s and was
a loft building catering mostly to
the garment trade. In 1996, Brause
Realty extensively remodeled the
building, which now houses Jet-
Blue and the LIC Partnership.
BY BILL PARRY
Greater Astoria Historical Society
44-02 23RD ST. #219
LONG ISLAND CITY, NY 11101
INFO@ASTORIALIC.ORG / WWW.ASTORIALIC.ORG
718-278-0700
/WWW.ASTORIALIC.ORG
/queenscouncilarts.org
link
link
