Neighborhood Info:
Queens NY Jamaica Estates, Briarwood - Holliswood

Jamaica Estates, next to Jamaica, was named by the development company who originally planned to develop the land. Wealthy people from Manhattan sought out space for country homes in early last century. Since Jamaica provided easy access to Manhattan, they bought the land next to it and called it Jamaica Estates. These land owners built large, exclusive homes, and created a community of wealthy professionals. Rentals are mostly apartments or carriage houses within in the larger homes.

Briarwood was named by the wife of developer Herbert O'Brian because the nearby woods were full of briars. Smack dab in central Queens, Briarwood is convenient to highways, the subway, LIRR, and buses. The neighborhood attracts successful immigrant families, but no one group predominates. This exclusively residential area features one and two-family houses, and a few apartment buildings. When the United Nations was created, its home was in Queens. The General Assembly met in Flushing Meadows from 1946 to 1950. Additionally, the borough, between Union Turnpike, Parsons Boulevard and the Grand Central Parkway on the Flushing-Jamaica border was home to hundreds and hundreds of people from around the world who worked at the U.N. This complex built especially for U.N. employees is called Parkway Village and is now a co-op.

This story is found in many sources: In 1884 Frederick W. Dunton, the nephew of the first president of the Long Island Railroad, was traveling East and he admired from his railroad car window the green and rolling hills of what is now Hollis and Holliswood. He purchased 136 acres of farmland and divided it into lots for sale. He laid out the curving streets of Holliswood and gave them Latin or Spanish names, such as Rio, Como, Marengo, etc.. Housing in the area grew during the economic boom of the 1920's and grew again after World War II. The neighborhood's handsome homes built on large land parcels makes it one of the most attractive and desirable areas to live in.