WWW.QNS.COM RIDGEWOOD TIMES JANUARY 30, 2020 21
OUR NEIGHBORHOOD: THE WAY IT WAS
From a school to a precinct to Maspeth’s ‘Town Hall’
BY THE OLD TIMER
EDITORIAL@RIDGEWOODTIMES.COM
@RIDGEWOODTIMES
Few places in Maspeth have proven more
important to the community’s livelihood
— or have changed so significantly — than
Maspeth Town Hall.
Situated in the middle of a residential block,
on 72nd Street just north of Grand Avenue,
the two-story building retains its 1897 design
as a community schoolhouse. But in the years
that followed, the building’s use would evolve
many times over — but always in service to the
community.
After housing a school that educated generations
of children, it wound up playing a role in
economic recovery following the Great Depression,
stationing police officers patrolling the
area and, as it does today, hosting a variety of
educational and cultural programs to improve
the lives of residents young and old.
The building was opened in 1898 as the
Brinkerhoff School, a 1 ½-story wooden schoolhouse
on farmland previously belonging to the
Brinkerhoff family. The family’s roots date back
to the colonial period in the mid-1600s, when
present-day Queens and New York were under
Dutch control.
The school, under control of the city’s Board of
Education, was also classified as P.S. 73. For the
next four decades, generations of children from
Maspeth and surrounding communities would
get their education.
As the population grew, so did the need for
larger schools. The city built a brand-new home
for P.S. 73 that opened in 1932 at the corner of
present-day 54th Avenue and 71st Street.
After the students had left, the wooden schoolhouse
was repurposed to house a Girls Club as
well as a Works Progress Administration (WPA)
Center.
The WPA, a program created in 1935 under
President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s “New Deal” to
combat the Great Depression, carried out scores
of public works projects across the country in an
effort to rebuild the infrastructure and stimulate
the economy.
But the WPA’s stay in Maspeth was brief, as
the New York Police Department took control of
the old schoolhouse in 1936, transforming it into
the headquarters of the 112th Precinct. The cops
remained at the Maspeth location until April
1971, when they relocated to new headquarters
at the corner of Austin Street and Yellowstone
Boulevard in Forest Hills. (Maspeth was incorporated
into the Ridgewood-based 104th Precinct’s
confines.)
After the NYPD left the schoolhouse, it remained
abandoned for several years without a
purpose, and fell into disrepair. Questions circulated
about what to do with the now-historic
building, short of razing it for other purposes.
But, as with other important structures in
Queens at the time, the community rallied to find
a way to do more than just save the building.
A group of local merchants and residents, led
by Margaret Markey (who would later become an
Assembly member), formed the “Save the School
Committee” for the building’s preservation and
This 1980s photo shows the exterior of Maspeth Town Hall.
Ridgewood Times archives/Courtesy of Greater Ridgewood Historical Society
Children at the Maspeth Town Hall Universal Pre-Kindergarten Program celebrate Dr. Seuss Day, a
tribute to the beloved children’s author, in 2019. Twitter/@MaspethTownHall
re-use. This led to the incorporation of a new
nonprofit organization, Maspeth Town Hall,
that would work over the next four decades to
renovate the building as a new venue for community
activities.
Today, thanks to the help of numerous Maspeth
residents and businesses along the way, the
Town Hall thrives as a community center, hosting
educational programs such as universal prekindergarten
for tots and after-school activities
for older children.
There’s also an array of senior programs as
well as arts and drama initiatives.
Sources: Maspeth Town Hall, the Juniper Park
Civic Association and “Our Community: Its History
and People,” published by the Greater Ridgewood
Historical Society, 1976.
* * *
If you have any remembrances or old photographs
of “Our Neighborhood: The Way It Was” that you
would like to share with our readers, please write
to the Old Timer, c/o Ridgewood Times, 38-15 Bell
Blvd., Bayside, NY 11361, or send an email to editorial@
ridgewoodtimes.com. Any print photographs
mailed to us will be carefully returned to you upon
request.
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