Man, Oh Man: Richmond Hill
Long ago, I was working at a job that only required me to be present three or four times a week and, after a few weeks poking around abandoned hospitals and boatyards in Staten Island, I thought it’d be nice to take a walk in a nicer part of town, a place that had, I knew, the most beautiful architecture ever conceived. Where might that be? Enter Richmond Hill, Queens.
Though Ditmas Park and Prospect Park South in Brooklyn and St. Paul’s Ave. in Stapleton, Staten Island, give it a run for its money, Richmond Hill can claim NYC’s greatest concentration of Queen Anne-style “painted lady” houses, such as the one shown here, in eclectic configurations painted in every color palette imaginable. Strolling the streets of Richmond Hill is a feast for the eyes.
The Victorian era, roughly 1865-1900, was a period characterized by a booming economy in many of its years, and architecture responded. No color or design was written off, and no expense was spared in construction. Yet, nothing was tacky or tasteless and despite every house on the block being completely different from the other, Victorian neighborhoods retained a unity of spirit that can’t be matched in these days of prefabricated junk. White’s the color of choice for many Richmond Hill homes, although color wasn’t a restricting factor and some houses are done in brilliant pinks, yellows, purples and greens.
Although there was no such thing as zoning in the late-1800s, Richmond Hill founder Albon Man had means at his disposal to make sure the community developed according to his specifications. He obtained restrictive covenants to dictate, for example, the absence of front-yard fences and uniform setbacks, that would give Richmond Hill a forest-like atmosphere with lots of green lawns, which persists to this day.
Most of the houses of Richmond Hill were constructed in what’s called the American Queen Anne Shingle style though there are some examples of an earlier style called the “Stick Style” from its thin posts and rails.
Albon Man also donated land for the Church of the Resurrection, facing 118th St. just south of 85th Ave., Richmond Hill’s first church. A small wooden Gothic Revival building was built by architect Henry Dudley in 1874; this structure’s preserved within the present French Gothic stone building, which was finished in 1904, though further extensions continued until 1926. Social reformer Jacob Riis (see below) was a parishioner, and New York State Governor Theodore Roosevelt attended Riis’ daughter Clara’s wedding to Dr. William Fiske on June 1, 1900. The Seal of the President of the USA can be found under the two arched stained glass windows above the entrance on 118th.
After years as a hollowed-out hulk, the Richmond Hill Republican Club is now fully restored as the Oligarch Restaurant. The landmarked building, on Lefferts Blvd. between Hillside and Jamaica Aves., pretty much looks the same on the exterior as it was when it was built in a Colonial Revival style by architect Henry Haugaard in 1908.
The building has an illustrious history. The interior originally had oak pews, doors and paneling, a bowling alley-cum-archery range, and signed photographs of Calvin Coolidge, Warren Harding and Theodore Roosevelt could still be found inside when it was inspected for landmarking, according to the Richmond Hill Historical Society. During World War I it became a canteen and a place for rest and relaxation for U.S. armed forces. The club remained an important gathering place for the Republican Party throughout the 20th century well into the 1980s. Presidents Teddy Roosevelt, Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford have all given speeches here, and Ronald Reagan appeared here during primary season in 1976 and during election season in 1980. In a more bipartisan era, Harry S Truman, a Democrat, also made a speech at the Richmond Hill Republican Club.
The Classic Diner, Jamaica Ave. and Lefferts Blvd., was the site of the Richmond Hill Palace, billed as “Richmond Hill’s new $250,000 pleasure palace” when it opened in 1925. James Kendis’s Blowing Bubbles Orchestra provided the music; Kendis wrote the pop song “I’m Forever Blowing Bubbles.” Helen Keller was a prominent guest the first year.
Almost as long as there’s been a Richmond Hill, the Triangle Hotel building has marked the triangle where Myrtle Ave. meets Jamaica Ave. It was built by Charles Paulson in 1868 and originally rented out as a grocery and post office. By 1893 the building, now owned by John Kerz and operating as a hotel, included an eatery named the Wheelman’s Restaurant in honor of the new bicycling craze. The hotel began lodging travelers going east on the turnpike from New York City or coming west from points on Long Island and has been known under various names through the years: the Mullins Hotel, Doyle’s Triangle Hotel, Waldeier’s Triangle Hotel, Triangle Hofbrau, and Four Brothers. Its mahogany bar was imported from Honduras, and a brass bell rang every time a round of drinks was purchased.
According to the Richmond Hill Historical Society, Babe Ruth (who was a golf enthusiast in nearby St. Albans) and Mae West were patrons of the Triangle Hofbrau in the 1920s; West was routinely ejected for smoking and causing a “general commotion.” Vaudeville pianist/composer Ernest Ball (1878-1927) wrote “When Irish Eyes Are Smiling” in one of the hotel’s guest rooms in 1912. A restaurant operated continuously in the Triangle building from 1893 to 1999. Remnants of this can be found especially on the Jamaica Ave. side where you see carvings of gnomes, beer barrels and grapes. By 2020, the place is run as a Spanish-speaking church, Sala Evangelica (Evangelical Room). Renovations have left more of the actual building visible on the Myrtle Ave. side.
Richmond Hill preserves its classic movie palace of yore, and this one has a marquee that has at least retained the look from its halcyon days, with red neon-lit nameplates and a gold border. The theater opened as the Keith’s Richmond Hill about 1928 at 117-09 Hillside Ave. just east of Myrtle Ave. The old marquee, which had been hidden under aluminum siding for some years, was restored in 2001 during production for a feature film, The Guru. Until the 1960s, it also hosted stage shows; England’s Dave Clark Five appeared there at the height of their popularity in 1965. Unfortunately the years haven’t been kind to its ornately constructed interior, though it’s structurally sound. The theater, which sat over 2200 customers, closed in the 1970s. Next door was Jahn’s, a 1923-vintage ice cream shop, once of a chain started by John Jahn in the Bronx in 1897.
Directly across from the Republican Club at Hillside Ave. and Lefferts Blvd. is another noted and beautiful building in a neighborhood full of them: the Richmond Hill public library. It was built in 1905 by the architectural firm Tuthill and Higgins with a grant from philanthropist Andrew Carnegie on land donated by Albon Man, the founder of Richmond Hill. Inside is a large interior mural painted in 1936 by artist Philip Evergood showing Richmond Hill as a suburban alternative to the hustle and bustle of the big city.
Jacob Riis Triangle, at 85th Ave., 116th and Babbage Sts., is named for crusading journalist and photographer Riis (1849-1914) who made his home in Richmond Hill, Queens, beginning in 1886. In 1887, Riis photographed the squalid, inhumane conditions prevalent in New York City’s tenements, and his 1890 book How The Other Half Lives has become an influential text to the present day. His cause was taken up by Police Commissioner Theodore Roosevelt, who encouraged legislation that would help ease the burden of NYC’s poorest.
In his autobiography Riis wrote of finding Richmond Hill: “It was in the winter when all our children had the scarlet fever that one Sunday, when I was taking a long walk out on Long Island where I could do no one any harm, I came upon Richmond Hill, and thought it was the most beautiful spot I had ever seen, I went home and told my wife that I had found the place where we were going to live… I picked out the lots I wanted. So before the next winter’s snow, we were snug in the house, with a ridge of wooded hills, between New York and us. The very lights of the city were shut out. So was the slum and I could sleep.” Riis’s house was placed on the National Register for Historic Places, but such a designation doesn’t protect a property. The home was torn down in the mid-1970s and replaced with a row of attached brick houses.
—Kevin Walsh is the webmaster of the award-winning website Forgotten NY, and the author of the books Forgotten New York (HarperCollins, 2006) and also, with the Greater Astoria Historical Society, Forgotten Queens (Arcadia, 2013)