46 THE QUEENS COURIER • HOLIDAY • NOVEMBER 30, 2017 FOR BREAKING NEWS VISIT WWW.QNS.COM
holiday
The Holiday Historic House Tour will take guests on
a journey through Queens’ most important homes
BY ANGELA MATUA
amatua@qns.com / @angelamatua
Th is holiday season, Queens residents
will have a chance to visit a handful of
historic homes on a trolley tour that also
illustrates why the “World’s Borough”
received that moniker.
Th e 30th Annual Holiday Historic
House Tour will take residents on a
journey through seven historic sites in
Flushing and Corona on Sunday, Dec. 10,
from 1 to 5 p.m. Guests can take a trolley
or walk through the tour, which is
sponsored by Th e Kindler Foundation,
Con Edison, the Sheraton LaGuardia East
Hotel, the Greater Flushing Chamber of
Commerce and the Queens Historical
Society.
The sites, which include Louis
Armstrong House Museum, Bowne
House, Flushing Town Hall, Quaker
Meeting House, Kingsland Homestead,
Lewis H. Latimer House Museum and
Voelker Orth House, will be decorated for
the holidays.
Th e tour will also celebrate the women
who occupied these homes to celebrate
the 100th anniversary of women’s suffrage
in New York.
Th e Louis Armstrong House Museum,
located at 34-56 107th St., was home to
jazz musician Louis Armstrong and his
wife, Lucille Armstrong, who lived there
from 1943 until 1983. Th e museum interior
has been preserved and completely
unchanged since the couple’s death.
Lucille Armstrong was the designer
responsible for the home’s marble bathroom
with 24-carat, gold-plated fi xtures;
the living room with dozens of objects
the Armstrongs collected during their
travels; and the den. Th e tour will highlight
her relationship with the community
and feature rare recordings from Louis
Armstrong.
Th e Bowne House at 37-01 Bowne St.
in Flushing, which was built in 1661 by
religious freedom advocate John Bowne,
is another stop on the tour. It’s the oldest
domicile in New York state and has city,
state and federal landmark status.
Th e house became a museum in 1945
and before, that nine generations of
Bowne and Parsons families lived there.
Th e museum will present an exhibition
on the history of Christmas and highlight
women’s roles in the celebration. It will
also display eyeglasses, ceramics, door
handles, toothbrushes and other artifacts
that were uncovered during a 2013 archeological
investigation of the kitchen area.
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Wednesday, December 13th (5-10PM)
to$an Un 4nforgett 5PER PERSON
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SPECIAL HOLIDAY PACKAGE
$40per person,
Your own private room
4 hours open bar (wine, beer, soda, liquor)
Unlimited hot & cold smorgasbord
Holiday dessert & coffee
Available Monday-Thursday (slightly higher on weekends)
ROOMS AVAILABLE FOR NEW YEAR’S EVE PARTIES
Banquet office open every day 12 noon to 9PM, later on weekends
25 Person Minimum
plus gratuities
& applicable
sales tax of
8.875%
21-01 24th Avenue, Astoria 718-721-7777
The Holiday Historic House Tour will take guests on a journey through Queens’ most historic homes.
Flushing Town Hall, built in 1862 at
137-35 Northern Blvd., went through
many iterations. The Romanesque
Revival building hosted swearing-in ceremonies
for Union soldiers before the Civil
War and then served as an opera house, a
courthouse, a jail and a bank branch.
Th e center will highlight Queens resident
and jazz singer Ella Fitzgerald by
playing her music and educating visitors
about her life at a Holiday Market
on Dec. 10.
Th e Quaker Meeting House at 137-
16 Northern Blvd. is New York’s oldest
structure in continuous use for religious
purposes. Built in 1694, it was the fi rst
house of worship constructed in what was
then Vlissengen.
Th e tour will end at the Quaker Meeting
House with live performances, hot apple
cider and folk singing. Quaker women in
Flushing were a part of the movements
to abolish slavery, expand educational
opportunity and obtain women’s suff rage.
Th e house will honor the Flushing
Female Association, which established
the area’s fi rst free school in 1814. Th e
school was in operation for more than 100
years and primarily served the African-
American community.
Kingsland Homestead at 143-35 37th
Ave. in Flushing was built in 1785 by
Quaker Charles Doughty. A British sea
captain named Joseph King purchased it
in 1801 and fi ve generations of the King/
Murray family lived there until the 1930s.
In 1968 the house was moved from its
original location in Flushing to the 37th
Avenue location.
It now serves as the Queens Historical
Society’s headquarters and for this tour,
they will honor Annie Cornelia Mitchell
Murray, a nurse who lived in the home
during the early 1800s. Murray served in
the United States Sanitary Commission,
the relief agency that treated sick and
wounded Union soldiers during the Civil
War.
Visitors will get a glimpse of the
Photo courtesy of Queens Historical Society
Mitchell Family Papers, which outline
how Murray’s family treated her as an
equal to her brothers during the Victorian
era.
Th e 19th-century Victorian home at
34-41 137th St. was occupied by Lewis
Howard Latimer from 1902 until 1928.
Latimer was the son of fugitive slaves and
was a critical in developing the telephone
and the incandescent light bulb when
working with inventors such as Th omas
Edison and Alexander Graham Bell. In
addition, Latimer was a poet, painter and
musician.
Th e tour will highlight his artwork and
original lamps. A short fi lm featuring
his granddaughter, Dr. Winifred Latimer
Norman, who fought to save the historical
house and raise awareness of her
grandfather’s contributions to science,
will be screened.
Elisabeth “Betty” Orth lived in the
Voelkor Orth house at 149-19 38th Ave.
in Flushing, which was turned into a
museum aft er her death in 1995. Th e
home, which was built in 1891, housed
three generations of Orths, and the garden
still contains many popular plants
and berry bushes of the 19th century. Th e
garden is maintained with no pesticides
and is a popular place for bees, butterfl
ies and birds.
For the tour the Victorian home will
be decorated with traditional German-
American frills, and guests will be able
to add gum drops to gingerbread houses.
Th ere will also be a sing-a-long with pianist
and vocal coach Kenneth Gartman.
Pfeff ernüsse, which are German spicy
cookies, and hot mulled cider will also be
served and an art exhibit featuring works
by German émigré Elizabeth Korn will be
displayed.
Tickets are $15 in advance, $20 at the
door and children under age 12 can
attend for $5. For more information, contact
Daniela Addamo at 718-939-0647,
extension 14, or daddamo@queenshistoricalsociety.
org.