Recalls "good old days" in Maspeth, Jamaica, Astoria, Jackson Heights, other areas: DeWitt Clinton mansion, hotel where Washington slept (1790), plus recent landmarks — Astoria Studios, 1939 World's Fair, more. 261 prints.

New York City as it was 1853-1901, through 196 wonderful photographs: great blizzard, Lincoln's funeral procession, great buildings, much more.

Queens offers a rare look at New York City's largest borough, featuring many never-before-seen images. The borough of Queens, New York, has seen many historical and geographical changes. Marshlands, woods, and farms gave way to factories, thriving communities, and the nation's premier arterial highway system.

In the early years of the 20th century, Queens County underwent an enormous transformation. The Queensboro Bridge of 1909 forever changed the landscape of this primarily rural area into the urban metropolis it is today. Forgotten Queens shows New York's largest borough between the years 1920 and 1950, when it was adorned with some of the finest model housing and planned communities anywhere in the country. Victorian mansions, cookie-cutter row houses, fishing shacks, and beachside bungalows all coexisted next to workplaces and commercial areas. Beckoning with the torch of the new century and a bright promise for those who dared to pioneer its urban wilderness, Queens flourished as a community. Through vintage photographs being seen by the public for the first time, the five wards of Queens are highlighted for their unique character and history.

True stories and vintage photos of this bustling New York City borough, covering everything from crime and corruption to a beloved Christmas poem. Queens has a history filled with fascinating firsts, cool characters and ramshackle ruins. From the nation’s first modern highway to the first-ever transatlantic flight, the borough has long been at the forefront of modern transportation. Poet Clement Clarke Moore was inspired by childhood memories of Elmhurst when he wrote the poem “’Twas the Night before Christmas.” The infamous William “Boss” Tweed once fled jail to a secret hideout in a Bayside hotel. The remains of the old Creedmoor Hospital complex in Queens Village are haunting, as are the eerie remnants of Fort Tilden in the Rockaways. In this fascinating book, Richard Panchyk reveals glimpses of the hidden history of Queens.

Located in northeast Queens, Fresh Meadows grew up around a housing development of the same name, built for World War II veterans. The site plan for the development not only provided an array of green open space, but it also enabled residents to enjoy a variety of services within walking distance. The development became the centerpiece of a brand-new neighborhood, which had been the site of a country club and farmland. In 1949, renowned urban and architecture critic Lewis Mumford hailed the Fresh Meadows housing development as "perhaps the most positive and exhilarating example of large-scale community planning in this country." Fresh Meadows captures the optimism of the postwar era by illustrating how middle-class families thrived in an environment that combined the best aspects of urban and suburban living.

Before Brooklyn rose to international fame there existed a vibrant borough of neighborhoods rich with connections and traditions. During the 1970s and 1980s, photographer Larry Racioppo, a South Brooklynite with roots three generations deep, recorded Brooklyn on the cusp of being the trendy borough we know today. In Brooklyn Before, Racioppo lets us see the vitality of his native Brooklyn, stretching from historic Park Slope to the beginnings of Windsor Terrace and Sunset Park. His black and white photographs pull us deep into the community, stretching our memories back more than forty years and teasing out the long-lost recollections of life on the streets and in apartment homes. Racioppo has the fascinating ability to tell a story in one photograph and, because of his native bona fides, he depicts an intriguing set of true Brooklyn stories from the inside, in ways that an outsider simply cannot. On the pages of, Brooklyn Before the intimacy and roughness of life in a working-class community of Irish American, Italian American, and Puerto Rican families is shown with honesty and insight. Racioppo's 128 photographs are paired with essays from journalist Tom Robbins and art critic and curator Julia Van Haaften. Taken together, the images and words of Brooklyn Before return us to pre-gentrification Brooklyn and immerse us in a community defined by work, family, and ethnic ties.