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The Queensboro Corporation was a real estate company founded by Edward A. MacDougall that played a major role in developing the Jackson Heights area of Queens, New York City. ==Early years== The Queensboro Corporation was formed by a group of investors from New York headed by Edward A. MacDougall. The corporation was founded on August 12, 1909, with the purpose of developing the area that was then called Trains Meadow. The first land purchase of was completed in 1910, and the corporation had bought about by 1914. MacDougall renamed the area Jackson Heights, after Jackson Avenue (now Northern Boulevard), the main east-west road at the time. There were no prominent "heights" in the area, but the word was presumably chosen to denote social exclusivity. At first the area could only be reached via a ferry from Manhattan. The Queensboro Bridge opened in 1909, making the area more accessible. The corporation started to energetically exploit the potential of the property. MacDougall's corporation went well beyond simply erecting buildings. It planned the community, divided the land into blocks and building lots, and installed streets, sidewalks, power, water and sewage. By 1912, of paved roads had been built with sidewalks, curbs and gutters, and there were of sewers. The elevated IRT Flushing Line reached Jackson Heights in 1917, reducing the travel time to Manhatta twenty minutes. There were four stations in Jackson Heights at 74th Street, 82nd Street, Elmhurst Avenue, and Junction Boulevard. In 1922, prompted by the Queensboro Corporation, the Fifth Avenue Coach Company launched a direct service of double-decker coaches to Jackson Heights. The target customers for the Queensboro Corporation were middle class residents of New York who could afford to live in the suburbs. In 1914 the Queensboro Corporation directors inspected new housing developments in several European cities. These probably included the garden apartment projects at Charlottenburg, Berlin, built between 1904 and 1909, that Erich Kohn and Paul Mebes had designed for the Berlin Civil Servants Dwelling Association. The housing developments at Jackson Heights closely resemble the Charlottenberg developments. In contrast to traditional suburbs of single-family houses, the Queensboro corporation decided to build upscale apartment buildings distinguished by shared garden spaces. The apartments were of high quality with ornate exteriors and features such as fireplaces, parquet floors, sun rooms and built-in bathtubs with showers. The apartments, or "homes", were sold rather than rented under what was first called a "collective ownership plan". This was later changed to "cooperative ownership", probably because the first name had connotations of socialism. During the years that followed, the interests of the Jackson Heights community and the Queensboro Corporation were closely intertwined. The local newspaper sometimes sounded like the voice of the corporation. The corporation encouraged development of the commercial area that surrounded the 82nd Street subway station, and assisted in setting up a community board to ensure the growth of civic institutions. MacDougall also donated land for churches. Part of the model in the early years, which broke down with the Great Depression of the 1930s, was "a policy of reasonable restriction in accepting tenants thus bringing together tenants having ideals and living standards in common." In plain English, this meant that Jews, Blacks, and perhaps Greeks and Italians were excluded from the community. Only white Anglo-Saxon Protestants were welcome. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア(Wikipedia)』 ■ウィキペディアで「Queensboro Corporation」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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