Sunnyside

 The Sunnyside community is located in the Borough of Queens, just a few minutes from the Queensoro Bridge and the Queens Midtown Tunnel. We are one of the most trafficked areas in the city. More cars pass through our commercial district  of Queens Boulevard (Sunnyside’s restaurant row) each day than most neighborhoods see in a normal week. Located between the long-established communities of the Blissville area of Long Island City and Woodside, our unique location makes us easily accessible to Manhattan and only 15 minutes by train to Times Square or the Empire State Building.

People in our area can often reach the theatre district faster then those living in some parts of Manhattan. Sunnyside is convenient, centrally located, and a great place to live, as long-time residents are quick to tell you.      It’s believed Sunnyside got its name back in 1850 when the railroad built a station across from the Sunnyside Roadhouse Hotel.

Rural Sunnyside farmland (circa 1900) Photo from the Van Riper Collection

"Sunnyside is a neighborhood in northwestern Queens, lying within Long Island City and bounded to the north by the Sunnyside Yards, to the east by Calvary Cemetery and 51st Street , to the south by the Long Island Expressway, and to the west by Van Dam Street . The area is named for a roadhouse built on Jackson Avenue to accommodate visitors to the Fashion Race Course in Corona during the 1850s and 1860s. A small hamlet was built between Northern and Queens boulevards and became known as Sunnyside. Most of the land was low-lying and therefore cheap; from 1902 to 1905 the Pennsylvania Railroad gradually bought up all the land south of Northern Boulevard between 21st and 43rd Streets. The entire area was leveled and the swamps filled in by 1908 and the yards opened in 1910. The Queensboro Bridge opened in 1909 and from it was built Queens Boulevard , which ran to the center of the borough through Sunnyside, where streets were built along the boulevard. Sunnyside Gardens (1924-29), a complex of attached houses of two and a half stories, with front and rear gardens and a landscaped central court, was on e of the nation's first planned communities, hailed for its innovative design by such scholars of urban life as Lewis Mumford (a onetime resident). During the following years the neighborhood became middle class, and largely Irish. During the 1940s and 1950s its large apartments enticed many artists and writers and their families to leave their cramped quarters in lower Manhattan , and the area became known as the "maternity ward of Greenwich Village ." Sunnyside during the 1980s attracted immigrants from Korea , Colombia , Romania , and China , though on the whole fewer immigrants than some of the surrounding neighborhoods in northeastern Queens . The Sunnyside Railyards are used by the Long Island Rail Road , Conrail, and Amtrak. The Knickerbocker Laundry nearby is a striking example of art moderne architecture." Vincent Seyfried, Encyclopedia of New York City , Edited by Kenneth T. Jackson. New Haven , Yale University Press. 1995       The German, Irish, Czech, Dutch and other Europeans were among  the first groups to establish themselves in our area. However, as their children grew up, they moved to Long Island and upstate New York looking for more rural areas that were more like the early beginnings of the neighborhood they grew up in. Meanwhile, Sunnyside continues to grow and thrive and change. Today, we are a melting pot of people contentedly living together.       Eastern Europeans, South Americans, Koreans, Middle Eastern, and the young Irish are once again relocating here. This influx of new immigrants accounts for the abundance of fine restaurants and unique choices in our food, coffee and spice stores, not often found in other areas. We take pride that you will find almost every ethnic restaurant right here in Sunnyside. Many people come to our area to dine and enjoy some of the finest eateries that can be found no where else in the city. Although part of the big City of New York, Sunnyside has retained its individual personality. Sunnyside is a small town in a big city. If  Manhattan is the Big Apple, then Sunnyside is its core that holds it together. Yes, this is a community where neighbors still do know each other.                                                 The official flag of Queens  Visit our site  "Pictures from the Old Good days" If anyone has any old photographs of Sunnyside please contact our office, we would like to save some of our history before it is lost.  Next time you go through your old pictures remember our office.  Don't let anyone throw out the pictures, you so carefully preserved  over the years. We are looking for pictures of the John F. Kennedy's picture at the Sunnyside Garden Arena, Mayor Jimmy J. Walker  opening the Sunnyside Gardens Park on May 18, 1926,  Gleason Centennial  Hotel,  Miller Hotel, (to mention a few) and any additional pictures of   Sunnyside Pool, Sunnyside Theatre, 43 St. Theatre, Knock bocker Laundry  Building and anything else you may have of interest even with family  members in the picture.  *Visit the Sunnyside Chamber web site and see an early picture  of the Sunnyside hotel and other early photos listed under  "Pictures of the Good Old Days