Remembering Queens

The borough of Queens has been many things, including a playground for wealthy Manhattanites, a recreation area for pleasure seekers, and a highly industrialized pocket of New York City.

The borough of Queens has been many things, including a playground for wealthy Manhattanites, a recreation area for pleasure seekers, and a highly industrialized pocket of New York City. With a selection of fine historic images from his bestselling book, Historic Photos of Queens, Kevin Sean O’Donoghue provides a valuable and revealing historical retrospective on the growth and development of Queens. One of the most beautiful and residential sections of New York City, the borough of Queens is home to the Mets, airports LaGuardia in the north and JFK in the south, and a steady force behind New York City, sheltering its laborers, builders, taxi drivers, teachers, firefighters, police officers, lawyers, businesspeople, and everyone else for more than a century.

From the borough’s rural origins to its multiethnic, metropolitan character of recent times, Remembering Queens celebrates the legacy of those who dared to head east, who settled the countryside, and who tempted the Atlantic when they built lives on the Rockaway peninsula. Over 100 images, reproduced in vivid black-and-white, with captions tell the story.

Kevin Sean O’Donoghue is a fourth-generation resident of Queens and has lived there for most of the past 30 years. He grew up and currently resides in Bayside with his wife, Kate, where they have personally added to the borough’s growth with children Desmond Jane, Deirdre, and Declan. In addition to being a writer, Mr. O’Donoghue has taught English and writing at New York universities and is a practicing attorney before the courts of the State of New York. While he enjoys the beaches of Rockaway, rooting for the home team at Citi Field, and life in the borough generally, he most enjoys getting on a train in hectic Penn Station and pulling into serene Queens just 25 minutes later.