Bartending School in Jackson Heights, NY

From colonial times to the 1900s, the area now known as Jackson Heights was a vast marsh named Trains Meadow. Urbanization at the turn of the century was creating a New York City housing shortage and urban sprawl. In 1909, Edward A. MacDougall’s Queensboro Corporation bought 325 acres (132 ha) of undeveloped land and farms and christened them Jackson Heights after John C. Jackson, a descendant of one of the original Queens families and a respected Queens entrepreneur.

Northern Boulevard, a main east-west road in the neighborhood, was also originally named Jackson Avenue; that name is retained in a short stretch in Long Island City. Though the land was not known for its elevation, after the land was filled to raise the terrain above the marshes of the Trains Meadow, Jackson Heights attained the highest elevation in the vicinity. The addition of the term “Heights” echoed the prestige of the neighborhood of Brooklyn Heights and indicated that Jackson Heights was meant to be an exclusive neighborhood. At that time the area could most easily be reached by ferry from Manhattan or the Brooklyn Bridge. More direct access came with the Queensboro Bridge in 1909, This was followed by the elevated IRT Flushing Line-the present-day 7 train, just 20 minutes from Midtown Manhattan-in 1917, and the Fifth Avenue Coach Company double-decker coaches in 1922.

Jackson Heights was conceived as a planned development for middle- to upper-middle-income workers looking to escape an overcrowded Manhattan. Inspired by Sir Ebenezer Howard’s garden city movement, it was laid out by Edward MacDougall’s Queensboro Corporation in 1916 and began attracting residents after the arrival of the Flushing Line in 1917. The Queensboro Corporation coined the name “garden apartment” to convey the concept of apartments built around private parks. Although land for churches was provided, the apartments were limited to White Anglo-Saxon Protestants, excluding Jews, Blacks, and perhaps Greeks and Italians.