Jackson Heights

Jackson Heights

Jackson Heights is a progressive community with top-notch food and beautiful architecture. People from all over the world make Jackson Heights their home, and have shown the world how it’s possible and glorious to have all kinds of people living harmoniously together. For its incredible food, Jackson Heights is a destination for people from all of the city and tourists alike. Bought in 1906 and developed in 1916 by the Queensboro Corporation, the neighborhood named after John Jackson, one of the first European settlers in the area. Jackson Heights was imagined to be “an oasis in the city,” centered on cooperative apartment complexes built around courtyards and small parks for use by its shareholders. However, these apartments were originally built as restricted communities, limited to white Anglo-Saxon protestants. After decades of challenges and an influx of immigrants from all over the world, along with white flight to the suburbs Jackson Heights has become the most diverse zip code in the United States. The buildings vary from gorgeous neo-Tudor, or neo-Romanesque apartment buildings and rowhomes, and English style homes, to classic walk up buildings and detached one or two family houses. There are a handful of condo buildings here, but the majority of housing here is co-ops with some rental buildings mixed in. This is another reason why buyers love Jackson Heights: you can find space and affordability here with an easy commute to Manhattan and so many trains to choose from. Jackson Heights is home to groups devoted to social activism from immigrants’ rights to street vendors’ rights, to queer liberation. In fact, the Queen‘s Pride Parade, started in 1993, passes through Jackson Heights every June, the result of organizing by local community members. There is a parade rolling down 37th Avenue nearly every weekend in the warmer months, bringing the community together in joyous celebration. Jackson Heights also has the city’s longest open street on 34th Avenue. Begun during the pandemic to give residents the opportunity to be outdoors, this mile stretch of street is closed to cars and you can find people spending time together, exercising, dancing, making art or riding bikes.