A QUEENS COURIER SPECIAL SECTION living in Whitestone College Point Whitestone’s growth into a middle-class community BY THE QUEENS COURIER STAFF editorial@queenscourier.com @QueensCourier Rooted in a rural past, Whitestone is today a burgeoning middle-class neighborhood that offers the comforts of suburbia just a few miles from Manhattan. According to the New York City Planning Department, Whitestone is one of the oldest European settlements on Long Island, dating to the 1640s. Dutch farmers who founded the settlement named the area for a large, white boulder that broke the tides along the shore. Information from the New York City Parks Department notes that these farmers purchased the land from the Matinecock Native Americans at the price of one ax per 50 acres. One of the area’s most prominent settlers was Francis Lewis, a merchant who was an original signatories on the Declaration of Independence. Lewis settled into the area in 1765 after retiring from the trade business, and he lived there when starting his political career in the Continental Congress and throughout the Revolutionary War. One of Whitestone’s public parks is named after Francis Lewis, and locals frequently fl ock to the waterfront grounds to snap photos of the illuminated bridge over the wide expanse of water below. The Whitestone community is extremely close-knit, with many families living in the area for generations. Residents pitch in to plan many local events throughout the year and several civic associations exist to reinforce the sense of small-town solidarity within the larger context of New York City. Perhaps its most prominent landmark is the bridge co-named for the neighborhood and its northern neighbor. The Bronx-Whitestone Bridge, from its 1939 opening, has been regarded as one of the city’s busiest crossings, with thousands of cars and trucks traveling it each day. Carrying Interstate 678 across the East River, it links the Hutcheson River Parkway in the Bronx with the Whitestone Expressway, which feeds into the Van Wyck Expressway, and the Cross Island Parkway.
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