Newtown, Queens

Elmhurst
Neighborhood of Queens
The intersection of Queens Boulevard and 57th Avenue; the Macy's store in Queens Center is in the background
Country	United States
State	New York
County	Queens
Settlement (Dutch)	1652
Area
• Total	3.036 km2 (1.172 sq mi)
Population (2010)
• Total	88,427
• Density	29,000/km2 (75,000/sq mi)
Ethnicity
• Hispanic or Latino	46.1%
• Asian	43.8%
• White	6.6%
• African American	1.3%
• Other	2.2%
ZIP code	11373
Area code(s)	718, 347, 917, 929

Elmhurst (formerly Newtown) is a working/middle class neighborhood in the borough of Queens in New York City. It is bounded by Roosevelt Avenue on the north; the Long Island Expressway on the south; Junction Boulevard on the east; and the New York Connecting Railroad on the west. The neighborhood is part of Queens Community Board 4.

The village was established in 1652 by the Dutch as Middenburgh (Middleburgh) and was a suburb of New Amsterdam (Nieuw Amsterdam) in New Netherland (Nieuw Nederland). The original European settlers of Elmhurst were from the nearby colony of Maspat (now called Maspeth), following threats and attacks by local Native Americans. When the British took over New Netherland in 1664, they renamed Middleburgh as New Town (Nieuwe Stad) to maintain a connection to the Dutch heritage. This was eventually simplified to Newtown.

Among the English settlers in the present Elmhurst section of Newtown was Gershom Moore. A chance seedling eventually produced the Newtown Pippin, Colonial America's most famous apple. The village of Newtown was established as the town seat for the township in 1683, when Queens County was reorganized as a "one county, five towns" model. The Town of Newtown, which had a town hall, jail, tax office, and town clerk's office, was the center of a municipality that comprised the villages that were located north of present-day Forest Park and west of Flushing Meadows.

More concentrated residential development was spurred by completion of a horsecar line, the Grand Street Line, which reached New Town in 1854. The Long Island Rail Road's Main Line was built through Elmhurst in 1876, attracting more residents to the neighborhood. Cord Meyer bought land at Broadway and Whitney Avenue in 1896. He proposed that the town be renamed "Elmhurst", meaning "a grove of elms"; in 1897, one year before Queens County was incorporated in the Greater City of New York, the town was renamed. The renaming was done partially to disassociate the town from nearby Maspeth and the smelly, polluted Newtown Creek, and partially to celebrate the elm trees (Ulmus americana) that abounded in the area.