This picture of John Joseph Crimmins taken in 1908, when he was a “cadet” in St. Raphael’s. He lived in the area known as “Blissville”, there were two wooden housed standing alone on Queens Blvd. and 34th Street., and his family rented one of them. He attended school also in Blissville at PS 80 on Greenpoint Avenue, now the home of Best Western City View Motel. 

Blissville, The northwestern Queens neighborhood that lies within Long Island City, north of Newtown Creek between Dutch Kills Creek and Greenpoint Avenue, is named after Neziah Bliss. In 1837, Bliss and Eliphalet Nott purchased what was then the Hunter farm, which included Hunter’s Point. After Calvalry Cemetery was established at Blissville’s eastern edge in 1848, factories, hotels, and saloons sprang up. Monument works were built first, followed by distilleries and oil refineries. Today, the Long Island Expressway runs through this primarily industrial neighbor

(Donated by his daughter Mrs. Dorothy Neary)