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Address: Rufus King Park, in the vicinity of Jamaica and
89th Avenues between 150th and 153rd Streets, Jamaica, and
www.kingmanor.org.
KINGSLAND HOMESTEAD (QUEENS
HISTORICAL SOCIETY)
The Kingsland Homestead was built in 1785 by original resident
Charles Doughty, the son of a wealthy Quaker. The two-story
dwelling became “Kingsland” after Doughty’s son-in-law, British
sea captain Joseph King, bought the property in 1801.
The first floor has a 1,350-square-foot exhibition-and-lecture
space. The second-floor parlor is designed in a Victorian
style representative of the 1870s with lacework and items
(i.e. notebooks, eyeglasses) that former inhabitants used. The
structure has a gambrel roof, a crescent-shaped window in a side
gable, a Federal-period chimney piece with an iron Franklin
stove and a Dutch-style, two-level front door.
Currently, Kingsland is home to the Queens Historical Society,
which runs educational programs, exhibitions, and a research
center there. The society presents public programs that include
lectures, film screenings, and workshops on subjects that focus
on the borough’s past and present.
Inside scoop: From 1847 until 1998, a 60-foot-high weeping
beech — with an umbrella of branches that stretched 85 feet —
lived in the backyard. The tree had New York City landmark
status, and it’s believed to be the original source for all weeping
beeches in the United States. Henry Stern, who was the NYC
Parks Commissioner at the time, held an outdoor, public funeral
for the tree in 1998.
Address: 143-35 37th Ave., Flushing, and
www.queenshistoricalsociety.org.
LEWIS LATIMER HOUSE MUSEUM
Lewis Latimer (1848–1928) was an African-American inventor
who worked with Alexander Graham Bell on the telephone and
Thomas A. Edison on the lightbulb. The Renaissance man was
a self-taught master draftsman, an expert on patent law, a poet,
and a painter. Not to brag, but he also played numerous musical
instruments.
The son of fugitive slaves, Latimer settled in Flushing, where he
helped found the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Queens
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/www.queenshistoricalsociety.org
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/www.queenshistoricalsociety.org
