Bartending School in Rosedale, NY

Rosedale was originally conceived in the consolidation of the borough of Queens as a part of what is now Springfield Gardens. At the time, the Laurelton Land Company was in charge of the new Borough of Queens. It was dotted with farmland that was isolated from each other, so construction on an acceptable mode of transportation was started immediately. The Southern Railroad of Long Island (now Long Island Rail Road) was built and the whole area (today Laurelton, Rosedale, and Springfield Gardens) was served by the Laurelton station. The area was also connected to the Brooklyn waterworks. In the 20th century, the water system was less needed, and its use dwindled. Today the ruins of the aqueduct system can still be seen. After the Long Island Rail Road’s construction, many new roads such as Francis Lewis and Sunrise Boulevard (today Sunrise Highway) were constructed. The area that is now Rosedale remained farmland until the mid-1930s. After the former period of relatively slow growth, development rapidly turned Rosedale into a suburban community. Rosedale was originally known as Foster’s Meadow.

During the mid-1970s, African American and Caribbean families started moving into what had been a mostly Irish, Italian, and Jewish community. Many black families’ homes were firebombed to harass them and cajole them to leave. The U.S. government filed a civil-rights lawsuit in 1975 against a group named Return Our American Rights (ROAR), alleging that ROAR had been harassing white homeowners who tried to sell to black clients, and implicating ROAR in some of the firebombings. In 1976, Bill Moyers presented a documentary titled Rosedale: The Way It Is, which addressed the racial tensions in the community. While the racial tensions decreased in subsequent years, there were still some incidents of racial conflict: for instance, during the July 4 weekend in 1989, a group of white youths chased black youths through Rosedale after a dispute over firecrackers.

In the end, the area ended up being mostly a home to many Caribbean immigrants. Irish, Italian, and Jewish Americans moved to the neighboring Nassau County communities of Valley Stream, South Valley Stream, and Woodmere.