Jamaica Estates is a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Queens. Jamaica Estates is part of Queens Community District 8 and located in the northern portion of Jamaica. It is bounded by Union Turnpike to the north, Hillside Avenue to the south, Utopia Parkway and Homelawn Street to the west, and 188th Street to the east. The main road through the neighborhood is Midland Parkway. The surrounding neighborhoods are Jamaica Hills to the west; Jamaica to the southwest; Hollis to the southeast; Holliswood and Queens Village to the east; and Fresh Meadows, Utopia, and Hillcrest to the north.

Character

The area is characterized by million-dollar homes and a multitude of trees. Midland Parkway, a partially four-lane boulevard with a wide, landscaped median strip whose renovation was completed in 2007, is the area's main artery. The neighborhood consists of mostly upper-middle-class residents. Most houses are single-family detached homes in the Tudor, Craftsman, Cape Cod, or Mediterranean styles. Out of 14,000 residents, 45% are foreign-born. In the 2000 United States Census, 43% of residents were white, Bangladeshis comprise 11% of residents, while Filipinos make up 10%, Haitians 7%, Guyanese 5%, and Russians 4%. A population of over 1,000 Bukharan Jews live in the area. Jamaica Estates has significant Modern Orthodox Jewish American and South Asian American populations. The only apartments and multi-family housing lie near the southern border within a few blocks from and along Hillside Avenue. The shopping corridors are along Hillside Avenue and Union Turnpike.

History

Jamaica Estates was created in 1907 by the Jamaica Estates Corporation, which developed the hilly terminal moraine's 503 acre, while preserving many of the trees that had occupied the site. The company was founded by Ernestus Gulick and Felix Isman, both of Philadelphia. In 2007, following the damage of the roof of the Historic Gatehouse in Hurricane Isabel, the restoration and beautification of the Gatehouse and Malls was completed. The Jamaica Estates Association, founded in 1929, continues as an active, vital civic organization representing the community. A historical plaque was unveiled April 23, 2010, on the Midland Mall by The Aquinas Honor Society of the Immaculate Conception School (now the Immaculate Conception Catholic Academy) and by the sponsor of the plaque, Senator Frank Padavan.

Education

The New York City Department of Education operates public schools: Private schools include:

Transportation

The New York City Subway's IND Queens Boulevard Line serves the neighborhood at the line's Jamaica–179th Street terminal station, as well as the penultimate 169th Street local station. The neighborhood is also served by the local bus lines on Hillside Avenue, the bus serves the area along Union Turnpike, the and buses on Homelawn Street and Utopia Parkway, and the bus serving the area on Hillside Avenue and 188th Street. Numerous express buses to Manhattan also stop on Union Turnpike and Hillside Avenue. In contrast to much of Queens, most streets in Jamaica Estates do not conform to the rectangular street grid and follow topographic lines, the most notable example being Midland Parkway. Many of the named streets have etymologies originating from Languages of the United Kingdom, such as Aberdeen, Avon, Hovenden, Barrington, Chelsea, and Chevy Chase Street. However, unlike Forest Hills Gardens, which is a similarly wealthy Queens neighborhood with an atypical Queens street layout, the street numbering system does conform to the grid in the rest of Queens. Jamaica Estates's house numbering system, as in the rest of Queens, uses a hyphen between the closest cross-street going west to east or north to south (which comes before the hyphen) and the actual house number (which comes after the hyphen).

Notable residents