College Point, Queens

College Point
Neighborhood of Queens
College Point Boulevard
Country	United States
State	New York
County	Queens
Named for	St. Paul's College
Population (2010 Census)
• Total	24,275
Race/Ethnicity
• Hispanic	35.7%
• White	32.0%
• Asian	27.9%
• Black	2.3%
• Other	2.1%
Economics
• Median income	$42,500
ZIP code	11356
Area code(s)	718, 347, 917

College Point is a working-middle-class neighborhood in the New York City borough of Queens. It is located north of Flushing on Flushing Bay and the East River also part of the Queens Community Board 7. Willets Point Boulevard and the Whitestone Expressway are often the neighborhood's approximate boundaries with Flushing and Whitestone, respectively; College Point also borders Willets Point at the Flushing River at the extreme southwest corner. The 109th Precinct of the New York City Police Department (NYPD) serves College Point. College Point is a diverse community, mostly residential with some industrial areas.

College Point was named for St. Paul's College, a seminary founded in 1835 by the Rev. William Augustus Muhlenberg. The college closed around 1850. Former names include Lawrence's Neck, Tew's Neck, Flammersberg, and Strattonsport.

The original European settler of this area was Captain William Lawrence. He was also the largest land holder of the original incorporators of the Town of Flushing, now in Queens. He arrived in America on the ship Planter in the 1630s. He married the oldest daughter of Richard "Bull Rider" Smith, who founded Smithtown on Long Island. With his first wife he had a son, William Jr., who married the Smiths' youngest daughter.

In 1854 the German-American industrialist, Conrad Poppenhusen arrived, already a prosperous manufacturer in Brooklyn of hard rubber goods, expanded his operation to this small farming community. College Point became a factory town primarily for his workers, most of them German immigrants like himself, and the tycoon became a philanthropist contributing to churches, libraries, and the Poppenhusen Institute, an educational beacon of College Point. He is responsible for the first free kindergarten in America. He connected College Point to Flushing by the Flushing and North Side Railroad, later called Whitestone Branch. A monument on College Point Boulevard, one of the main streets in College Point, stands testament to Poppenhusen.