Corona, Queens

Corona is a densely populated neighborhood in the former Township of Newtown in the New York City borough of Queens. It is neighbored by Flushing to the east, Jackson Heights to the west, Forest Hills and Rego Park to the south, Elmhurst to the southwest and East Elmhurst to the north. Corona's main thoroughfares include Corona Avenue, Roosevelt Avenue, Northern Boulevard, Junction Boulevard and 108th Street. Part of the neighborhood is in Queens Community Board 4, while the northernmost part is in Community Board 3. Corona's zip code is 11368.

Flushing Meadows-Corona Park is one of the largest parks in New York City and the site of the 1939 and 1964 World's Fairs. Located within the park are Citi Field, home of the New York Mets, and the USTA National Tennis Center, where the U.S. Open in tennis is held annually.

Total population of this ZIP code was 98,609 as of the 2000 Census. Corona's racial/ethnic composition is 7.9% White, 14.5% Black, 10.0% Asian, 64.9% Hispanic/Latino and 2.7% Other.

Community
Corona was a late 19th century development in the old Town of Newtown. The name allegedly derives from the crown used as an emblem by the Crown Building Company, which developed the area; the Italian immigrants who moved into the new housing stock referred to the neighborhood by the Italian or Spanish word for "crown" (which is "corona").

In the last half of the 20th century Corona saw dramatic ethnic successions. In the 1950s what was predominately an Italian American and African American neighborhood began to give way to an influx of Dominicans. In the late 1990s, Corona saw a new wave of immigrants from Latin America. The residents of the Dorie Miller Coops and Meadow Manor Apartments remain predominately African-American. There is also a predominately African-American and African-immigrant community in The LeFrak City housing development.

The majority Hispanic community consists of Dominicans, Mexicans, Colombians, Ecuadorians, Guatemalans, Bolivians, Peruvians and Chileans. There are also Asian Americans, (Koreans, Filipinos, Chinese and Pakistanis) as well as Italian Americans and African-Americans. There are currently Dominican Americans representing Corona in both the New York City Council, Julissa Ferreras, and in the New York State Senate, Jose Peralta.

Dorie Miller Residential Cooperative, built in 1952, comprises six buildings, containing 300 apartments, with 1,300 rooms. The cooperative is named after Doris "Dorie" Miller, a U.S. Naval hero at Pearl Harbor and the first African-American recipient of the Navy Cross. Among its original residents were jazz greats Nat Adderley & Jimmy Heath; Kenneth and Corien Drew, publishers of Queens' first African-American newspaper, The Corona East Elmhurst News; Thelma E. Harris, founder of Aburi Press; and prominent Queens attorney Henry Slaughter, to name a few.

During the 1950s and 60s Corona and its neighbor, East Elmhurst, were home to legendary African- American musicians, civil rights leaders and athletes, including Dr. Ophelia Devore; Dizzy Gillespie; Charlie Shavers; Ella Fitzgerald; Norman Mapp; Nat Adderley; Frankie Lymon; Willie Mays; George Williams, former Harlem night-club-dancer-turned-restaurateur who owned the renowned BBQ George's Supper Club frequented by the Black elite of Queens and New York politicos, including civil rights activist Judge William "Bill" Booth, publisher; and NYC commissioner Ken Drew.

The two communities have often been referred to as "Corona/East Elmhurst" and are the childhood home of the first African-American US attorney general, Eric Holder, and of rap (Hip Hop) artists Kid n' Play, Kwamé, Salt-n-Pepa and Kool G Rap and are home to Queens Borough President Helen Marshall and her husband, Donald.

Corona/East Elmhurst also houses one of the most extensive collections of African-American art and literature in the Langston Hughes Community Library and Cultural Center, which serves Queens County with reference and circulating collections that total approximately 30,000 volumes of materials written about or relating to Black culture. The Black Heritage Reference Center of Queens County includes books, periodicals, theses and dissertations, VHS videos, cassettes and CDs, photographs, posters, prints, paintings and sculpture. Cultural arts programs are scheduled through the Center. Meeting space is available to community organizations by application. Special features of the Center include:
 * 'The Schomburg Clippings File,' an extensive microfiche collection of periodicals, magazine clippings, typescripts, broadsides, pamphlets, programs, book reviews, menus and ephemera of all kinds.
 * The UMI Thesis and Dissertation Collection, consisting of more than 1,000 volumes of doctoral and master dissertations that concern the African and African-American diasporas.
 * The 'Adele Cohen Music Collection,' which contains most of America's foremost Black publications on microfilm. The papers cover 15 states, beginning in 1893, and are updated each year with current issues.
 * The 'Black Heritage Video Collection,' which documents the history and culture of Africans and African-Americans on tape and in all subject areas, including literature, biography, social science and fine arts.

Literature readings and workshops and lectures, as well as cultural arts programming in fine art exhibitions, film festivals, dance, musical and dramatic presentations/performances, are scheduled through the Black Heritage Reference Center.

Popular culture

 * Lemon Ice King of Corona, at 108th Street and Corona Avenue, appears in the opening credits of the TV show King of Queens.


 * Paul Simon bade "goodbye to Rosie, the queen of Corona," in his song "Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard."


 * F. Scott Fitzgerald referred to the Flushing-Corona dumps as the "valley of ashes" in his novel The Great Gatsby.


 * Books about Corona's history and its present include Roger Sanjek's The Future of Us All and Steven Gregory's Black Corona.


 * Chapter 6 of Andrew Morton's Madonna describes Madonna's brief stint as a Corona resident in the late 1970s/early 80s.

Transportation
The IRT Flushing Line ( trains) runs through the neighborhood with stops at 111th Street, 103rd Street – Corona Plaza and Junction Boulevard.

Notable residents
Notable current and former residents of Corona include:
 * Cannonball Adderley (1928–1975), jazz alto saxophonist.
 * Nat Adderley (1931–2000), jazz cornet and trumpet player.
 * Louis Armstrong (1901–1971), jazz trumpeter, whose house is now a museum.
 * Maurice E. Connolly (1881–1935), Queens Borough President from 1911 to 1928.
 * Marie Maynard Daly (1921–2003), first African-American woman in the United States to earn a Ph.D. in chemistry.
 * Peter T. Farrell (c. 1901–1992), judge who presided over the trial of bank robber Willie Sutton.
 * Ella Fitzgerald (1917–1996), jazz vocalist.
 * Dizzy Gillespie (1917–1993), jazz trumpeter.
 * Jimmy Heath (born 1926), jazz saxophonist.
 * Lena Horne (1917–2010), singer and actress.
 * Kool G Rap (born 1968), rapper.
 * Estée Lauder (1906–2004), founder of the cosmetics company that bears her name.
 * Johnny LoBianco (1915–2001), boxing referee.
 * Madonna (born 1958), singer lived here from 1979–1980 as a member of the band Breakfast Club.
 * Frankie Manning (1914–2009), popularized the Lindy Hop.
 * Omar Minaya (born 1958), Former General Manager of the Montreal Expos and New York Mets.
 * Robert Parris Moses, a legendary figure in the civil rights movement of the 1960s, and later founder of the Algebra Project, lived at 108-63 Ditmars Boulevard in Corona.
 * Carlos D. Ramirez (1946–1999), publisher of El Diario La Prensa.
 * Clark Terry (born 1920), Swing trumpeter.
 * Norman Mapp (1928–1988) Jazz Vocalist and Composer
 * Jim Valvano (1946–1993), basketball coach.


 * Hip-hop musicians Kidd & Play, Kwamé, BB and Salt-n-Pepa, came from Corona/East Elmhurst.Darryl "God" Whiting, DJ Polo, Styles P, Noreaga, Big Mato, Nu-Era, The Beatnuts, Disco Twins, Nu Sounds, King Charles, T Rapper D Disco Knights & V.I.C. came from Corona.

Queens Borough President Helen Marshall; Dr. Calvin O. Butts III, pastor of the nationally renowned Abyssinian Baptist Church; jazz greats and performers Charlie Shavers and Irving Barnes; and Frankie Lymon made Corona their home.

Paul Simon, singer, songwriter of Simon and Garfunkel and solo artist, was born in Corona.