Greater Astoria Historial Society 35-20 Broadway, 4th Floor | L.I.C., NY 11106 718.278.0700 | www.astorialic.org Gallery Hours: Mondays & Wednesdays 2-5 PM Saturdays 12-5 PM Exhibits ~ Lectures ~ Documentaries ~ Books Walking Tours ~ Historical Research Unique & Creative Content For more information visit us on the web at www.astorialic.org This image adapted from an invitation to the Long Island City Athletics 33rd Annual Masque Ball, 1909. 32 MARCH 2015 i LIC COURIER i www.queenscourier.com ■LEGENDS As a youngster, I would see my mother often brewing tea. There was one brand she particularly liked – Lipton Tea. On the red box, an elderly mustached gent with a slight smile held up a teacup. One could almost hear him slurping the first taste of hot tea. Behind that enigmatic gentle smile is a person’s story, and an enduring mystery that starts off in the waters of New York Bay, takes us to Queens Plaza, Astoria Park, Bay Ridge and Flatbush in Brooklyn, and perhaps back to Long Island City. Sir Thomas Lipton was a rare person, a yachtsman who mingled with the ruling elite of Great Britain in the time when they ruled a quarter of the world. Yet, he also was the product of desperate poverty, who somehow managed to build. Born in 1848, the son of shopkeepers in Glasgow, Lipton left school at 13 to supplement the family’s limited income by employment as an errand boy and, later, as a cabin boy on a steamer. Enthralled by shipboard life, and hearing of stories about America from the crew, he saved his money and got a steerage passage aboard a ship bound for the States. There he spent the next five years travelling and handling jobs as varied as a driving a mule-powered streetcar in New Orleans and toiling as a farm hand in New Jersey. In 1870, at 22, he returned home to Scotland with $500 in his pocket and a head full of dreams. Lipton opened a market and within a decade had a chain of 200 shops throughout Scotland and England. In the 1880s, his attention turned again to America, this time as an investor in the new stockyards of Omaha, Nebraska. The facility passed Chicago to become the largest meat processing facility in the world. Back home in Britain, Lipton pondered his next move. Since the days in his parents’ store, when he sold tea, a mainstay of British life, to the poor working class in Glasgow, its sales had doubled. Realizing that his American experience showed him how to take advantage of new opportunities through controlling the distribution process and bypassing the traditional channels of trade, he believed he could slash its price. His fortune from the stockyard venture fueled a new empire perched on the humble tea leaf. “The Lipton Tea” brand was born. Soon his retail network employed over 8,000 people. A century later more than 24 million people drink “Lipton Tea” each week. Recalling with fondness his experiences on the steamer, Lipton turned his attention to the sea and yachting. A biographer noted that, although King Edward VII and King George V both shared their interest with him in yachting, and enjoyed his company, Lipton was a self-made man. His membership to the panicle of yachting in England, the Royal Yacht Club, was rejected. Lipton would show them. He turned his energies on his final, great quest in life: the pursuit of yachting the prestigious “Americas Cup.” And this would lead him to Queens Plaza. LEGENDS OF LIC BY GREATER ASTORIA HISTORICAL SOCIETY LEGENDS OF LIC
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