Forest Hills, Queens, New York
| Forest Hills | |
|---|---|
| Neighborhood of Queens | |
|
|
| Country |
 United States
|
| State |
 New York
|
| City |
 New York City
|
| County/Borough | Queens |
| Area | |
| • Total | 7 km2 (2.6 sq mi) |
| • Land | 6 km2 (2.4 sq mi) |
| • Water | 0.5 km2 (0.2 sq mi) |
| Population (2010) | |
| • Total | 83,728 |
| • Density | 13,470/km2 (34,886/sq mi) |
| Ethnicity | |
| • White | 59.58% |
| • Asian | 23.7% |
| • Hispanic | 12.03% |
| • Black | 3.73% |
| Time zone | EST (UTC-5) |
| • Summer (DST) | EDT (UTC-4) |
| ZIP code | 11375 |
| Area code(s) | 718, 347, 917 |
Coordinates: 40°42′58″N 73°51′00″W / 40.71611°N 73.85000°W
Forest Hills is a neighborhood in the borough of Queens in New York City. Originally, the area was referred to as "Whitepot". Forest Hills is bounded by 62nd Drive, Thornton Place, and Selfridge Street to the west, Metropolitan Avenue to the south, Union Turnpike to the east, and the Grand Central Parkway to the north. Forest Hills Gardens has some of the most beautiful architecture in New York. There is also a great tradition of tennis. Forest Hills Stadium hosted the U.S. Open until 1978 and the West Side Tennis Club offers pristine grass courts for its members. Bustling Austin Street bisects Forest Hills and boasts lots of restaurants and chain stores. Forest Hills is bordered by Flushing Meadows-Corona Park and Forest Park, both of which offer residents hundreds of acres of green space to explore. It is bounded by Burns Street to the north, Union Turnpike to the east, Greenway South and Harrow Street to the south, and Tennis Place and Continental Ave to the west.
The development of adjacent Forest Park, a park on the southern end of Forest Hills, began in 1895. Starting in 1896, the landscaping firm of Olmsted, Olmsted & Eliot was contracted to provide a plan for the park.
In 1906, Brooklyn attorney Cord Meyer bought abutting land made up of six farms (those of Ascan Bakus, Casper Joost-Springsteen, Horatio N. Squire, Abram V. S. Lott, Sarah V. Bolmer, and James Van Siclen) and then renamed the aggregated 600 acres Forest Hills. There is a street named after Ascan Bakus, Ascan Avenue, in Forest Hills today. In 1909, Margaret Sage, who founded the Russell Sage Foundation, bought 142 acres (0.57 km2) of land from the Cord Meyer Development Company. Grosvenor Atterbury, a renowned architect, was given the commission to design Forest Hills Gardens. The neighborhood was planned on the model of the garden communities of England. As a result, there are many Tudor-style homes in Forest Hills, some more sprawling ones located in Forest Hills Gardens while most are located in the Cord-Meyer section (loosely bounded by 68th Avenue on the north; 72nd Road on the south; 108th Street on the west; and Grand Central Parkway on the east). The construction of this area used a prefabricated building technique; each house was built from approximately 170 standardized precast concrete panels, fabricated off-site and positioned by crane. In 1913, the West Side Tennis Club moved from Manhattan to Forest Hills Gardens. The U.S. Open and its predecessor national championships were held there until 1978, making Forest Hills synonymous with tennis for generations.
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Wikipedia