Astoria

Astoria is a neighborhood in the northwestern corner of the borough of Queens in New York City. Located in Community Board 1, Astoria is bounded by the East River and is adjacent to three other Queens neighborhoods: Long Island City, Sunnyside (bordering at Northern Boulevard) and Woodside (bordering at 50th Street).

Demographics
Astoria is a diverse neighborhood, with many immigrants from Greece, Brazil, Italy, Ireland, Latin America, Asia and the Middle East.

History
The area now known as Astoria was originally called Hallet's Cove, after its first landowner, William Hallet, who settled there in 1659 with his wife Elizabeth Fones. Beginning in the early 19th century, affluent New Yorkers constructed large residences around 12th and 14th Streets, an area that later became known as Astoria Village (now Old Astoria). Hallet's Cove, founded in 1839 by fur merchant Steven Halsey, was a noted recreational destination and resort for Manhattan's wealthy.

The area was renamed after John Jacob Astor, then the wealthiest man in America, in order to persuade him to invest $2,000 in the neighborhood. He invested only $500, but the name stayed nonetheless, as a bitter battle over naming the village was finally won by Astor's supporters and friends. From his summer home in Hell Gate (corruption of the Dutch phrase Hellegat) – at what is now East 87th Street near York Avenue in Manattan – Astor could see across the East River to the new Long Island village named in his honor; it is believed, however, that Astor never set foot in Astoria.

During the second half of the 19th century, economic and commercial growth brought increased immigration from German settlers, mostly furniture and cabinet makers. One such settler was Heinrich Engelhard Steinweg, patriarch of the Steinway family who founded the piano company Steinway & Sons in 1853, which today is a worldwide piano company. Afterwards, the Steinways built a sawmill and foundry as well as a streetcar line. The family eventually established Steinway Village for their workers, a company town that provided school instruction in German as well as English.

In 1870, Astoria and several surrounding villages, including Steinway, were incorporated into Long Island City. Long Island City remained an independent municipality until it was incorporated into New York City in 1898. To accommodate the growing population, the area's farms were turned into housing tracts and into street grids.

Astoria figured prominently as one of the initial centers in early American filmmaking, a heritage preserved today by the American Museum of the Moving Image and Kaufman Studios.