8 AUGUST 2, 2018 RIDGEWOOD TIMES 110TH ANNIVERSARY WWW.QNS.COM
PROGRESS IN THE TIMES
The early years
Early articles fought for the installation
of swers, lamp-posts,
ad paved streets. The Ridgewood
Times coined the term “Greater
Ridgewood” when it found that City
offi cials could not even discuss the
area’s problems without looking it
up on a map.
The paper worked hand-in-hand
with local civic groups, many of which
have since passed into oblivion, in successfully
obtaining improvements and
recognition for the area. As the area
progressed, hundreds and hundreds
of homes were built to accommodate
the immigrants who fl owed here from
Manhattan and Brooklyn.
As the population grew, the need
for proper schooling became a paramount
issue in the community. From
a one-room school house and a single
parochial school, a system of public
and private education grew in the area.
The district school house situated
on Cooper Avenue, with a seating
capacity for about 40 children, was
quickly fi lled to the brim. The school
was maintained by means of a separate
school tax paid by the farmers who sent
their children there. Extra rooms were
built because of the overcrowding,
and other small school houses began
springing-up around the community.
The Union Free School No. 9, with
12 rooms, was built on Bergen Avenue
(present-day St. Felix Avenue) near
John Street (present-day 60th Street);
at the time of consolidation this school
became known as P.S. 68 of Queens.
By 1908, aft er a long and tedious battle
by members of the Evergreen Board
of Trade, and various members of the
Ridgewood community, a new P.S. 68 was
dedicated. It boasted 24 classrooms, well
lighted, heated, ventilated and equipped
with all modern improvements.
The Ridgewood Times was in the
forefront of each school which opened
in Ridgewood, Glendale, Maspeth, and
Middle Village, as the years progressed.
The newspaper also set it sights on the
need for library facilities. By 1910 the
population of the area was 70,000 and
the only public library was in the
Brooklyn section on Knickerbocker
Avenue and Grove.
Two travelling stations were
established to serve the community
in 1910. One was based at 242 Woodward
Ave., and the other at 1650
Myrtle Ave. The Glendale Branch
Traveling Station opened in 1911 in a
shoe store at Myrtle and Cooper Avenues,
and travelling sections were
also opened in Maspeth and Middle
Village. Through the efforts of civic
groups, mothers’ clubs, and the Ridgewood
Times, various sites were used
to expand these inadequate facilities
until the permanent structures which
stand today were erected one by one in
their communities.
The Ridgewood Reference Center,
the first branch library funded
The Ridgewood Times offi ce on Cypress Avenue
entirely with City money, opened
in 1929 on Madison Street between
Forest and Fairview Avenues. In 1937,
a City-owned building erected by the
WPA opened on 73rd Place in Glendale.
The Middle Village Library, which had
operated in a succession of storefronts,
moved to a location on Metropolitan
Avenue in 1967 before relocating in
the late 1980s to a condominium on
Metropolitan Avenue, and the Maspeth
library opened on Grand Avenue
in 1975.
In 1915, operation began on the
first of Ridgewood’s connections
to the modern train network of
the greater city - the elevated line
running from Wyckoff Avenue to
Fresh Pond Road. This section had
long been run at ground level, but
after its connection at Wyckoff
Avenue, it became part of a system
that ran west to Marcy Avenue in
Brooklyn, a length of elevated
structure that had been started
in 1908.
Building a Community
The rumble of the elevated train
was an echo of the rumble of war
in Europe. The Greater Ridgewood
area, with its heavy German
population, made a concentrated eff ort
to prove its patriotism to America.
Hamburg Avenue was renamed aft er
President Wilson, and several other
street names were also changed.
Ridgewood Times publisher Carl
Clemens, then a small boy, recalled
those years in the paper’s 75th Anniversary
issue, published in 1983: “They
had brothers and sisters in Germany,
and were confused by their allegiance
to the United States, and their emotional
ties to ‘the old country.’”
Indeed, the economic and political
crises aft er World War I brought a
new wave of arrivals from Europe,
among them the Gottscheer populace,
entering the area for the fi rst time. Many
residents of the area, old and new,
were involved in the formation of various
fraternal and civic associations.
Over the decades, the population
evolved to include residents of Polish,
Italian and Hispanic descent, and they
in turn would form their own societies
and organizations while contributing
to the growth and vitality of the
neighborhood. Indeed, the Greater
Ridgewood area has always been a
homogeneous mixture of ethnic heritages,
and has continued to maintain
that tradition through the years.
It was customary for the school to
place students in training programs
in various businesses in the area. The
directors of the Queensboro School
placed Clemens with the Ridgewood
Times on a temporary basis.
“Schubel threw every conceivable
job at me while I was in training,”
Clemens noted. “I turned all energies
into the job and by the time my threemonth
training period was over in
August of 1920, Schubel realized that
I was doing the work of three people
Carl Clemens, former Ridgewood Times publisher and it would be foolish to let me go.”