Flushing Main Street (1997)
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- čas přidán 30. 01. 2015
- This is the full version of a short video I posted a long time ago. Some historical bus photos are included. Included is inside Woolworth's, the game arcade, subway mezzanine before renovation, store fronts and tons of buses and Asian faces.
Gloria Pizza has re-opened at 71Ave and Queens Blvd serving the same pizza they served from 1960 to the late 1990s.
Apparently, I took the LIRR out there for the sole purpose of taking the video and riding back to New York with my mother. It seems I walked around just long enough for my train to go all the way to Port Washington and return to Flushing Main Street, in 1997.
![A Day in New York 1940s in color [60fps, Remastered] w/sound design added](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/IjwyUAtACTI/mqdefault.jpg)
God bless people who convert their tapes to digital. I love these videos so much. Thanks for sharing these gems.
The person who filmed this knew exactly what people now want to see. I was probably one of those teenagers in the arcade.
Looking at this video shows how much the city has changed. Man I would kill just to go back in time and see it all over again.
Likewise
How has it changed more asians
@@richardrock71 No, things have really CHANGED. Use your brain.
Caesar Harrison - I’m with you bud, love to turn the clock back and bring back the “old Flushing”. I remember one Chinese restaurant on Northern Blvd. called Lum’s. And then there was Jahn’s, great soda shop on Main St. Been back just a few years ago, and it’s like a foreign city!!! It sucks now!!! They totally destroyed what was once a nice place.
Caesar Harrison - I fled to Arizona, and it’s so much more civilized here. Born & raised in Whitestone and went to Flushing to catch the IRT to Manhattan. Been back a few times, and I can’t believe how dirty Flushing has become! Whitestone and Bayside are still nice, but who knows how long it’ll be before the losers move there and ruin it too. Of course Great Neck and parts of Long Island are still nice, but the high taxes and the political bias in NY will keep me in Arizona.
I can't believe that was 21 years ago. It seems like yesterday when i would go there to get a bite to eat before going to Shea Stadium or the US Open.
@Jenny Lee 25*
This video got me emotional. To look at all the old stores and see what was the great old Flushing. And now it's all sadly gone... Thank you for sharing.
I feel your pain. 50 years old. Still live in the area. I know things change, but this was a bit drastic!
I moved in 96 and this video has refreshed my memories. I used to be able to ride my bike on the streets, but now the streets are so crowded.
11:46 I spent so much time in this arcade! Dumped lots of quarters into the Daytona USA sit down racer. Whoever recorded this ... you’re awesome.
It was sad when Woolworths closed. A great New York institution!
My teenage years at that time. I used to walk those streets every day, I remember the horrible garbage smell 😖 ah memories lol
McDonald's and Duane Reade are like over there FOREVER! All others are long gone.
hey, youre a fart smeller, I mean, a smart feller!
True
And the library
I remember Blue Star Market, Roy Rogers, Prospect Theatre, etc.
I remember Woolworths and Caldor. Miss these times. Kissena Blvd. in the house!
Cherry St
Damn I grew up in 43-70 Kissena Blvd. Skyline towers. Entire 80's. I also remember Woolworths and Macys on Roosevelt. I ran all these streets as a kid. Went to PS 120 and IS 237. Definitely miss those years
In New Jersey where I still live and this is for russianbot2397...the stores u mentioned we're exactly the stores that I grew up going to a lot but it's really a shame that these places have ceased to exist.
Woolworth, Gloria’s pizza and the infamous Wendy’s ... wow I remember this Main Street
NYChick101 yu used to love there
I remember the 1993 Orion vs
Anybody remember entertainment world the arcade, and the video game store next to where the chicken spot is?
@@LiveFree381 For some reason I remember an arcade over there but because I was really young and my mother worked at the pathmark over there, I would go to the arcade that was in the same parking lot as the pathmark and the pizzeria.
@@ulovetashi yea I grew up in that area and I went to P.S. 21 and then P.S. 20! Good times and a totally different flushing I remember sunrise video and the Quartet theatre in northern blvd I remember seeing Teenage Mutant Ni ja Turtles there in 1990 I was 6 at the time. Damn how fast time flies......
Thanks for uploading this.Everything in this video is gold.
Nostalgic af. I moved to Toronto, Canada in June 97 from there. My sister worked at the Joyce Leslie. Memories
Awesome video!! Love older vids like this of NYC. Memories of a wonderful city, during a wonderful time. Thank you for sharing this!!
This is so cool seeing Flushing the year I was born. I recognize a lot of stuff there and the bus models in the video still are in use today. Although I wished that Wendy's would have stayed. Very well made video
+CraftyFoxe I wouldn't want to eat at a place where 5 out 7 employees were executed.
Tone Riggz Well they don't have to put it exactly where the murder was and open a new one along main street, I bet it would be very popular. Instead they moved it like a mile away! It's a real shame that this all happened. :/
Executed?
great seeing the old pedestrian signals and privately owned bus companies!
Thanks for the video! Brings back a lot of memories!
I lived on linden place from 1995 to 1999 this video brought a tear to my eyes what great memories i remember Caldor the little diner on Roosevelt Ave and the Queens quartet on northern Blvd such a great period in my life I almost felt like I was walking around while watching this video Pathmark off farrington street and of course busy town mall. Thanks love this..
Anyone remember the blind person who played a melodica outside Caldor? (keyboard with a mouthpiece.)
I still remember
I had forgotten until reading this comment.
This was when driving was still faster than walking in Flushing...
This is really good. I wasn't around much in the 90s but Flushing did still look like this back around 2003 when I was like 5 years old. To this day I still come back and fourth here everyday. Glad you made this video, in some ways I kinda missed these days.
I can’t believe library was renovated already then. I remember library when it was before renovation. Now, that area is like a god mine.
Man, you took me back to my childhood! Thanks for this video!
Glad you enjoyed it!
the arcade seemed so much bigger when I was younger lol
it was always a bit budget tbh
The first frame of the video is the apartment I used to live in at 41-25 Main street from 1976-1979, still Michael s r.c. school , prospect theatre, Woolworths Alexander s Macy's , Gloria pizzeria,
I miss the 1970's Disco era Flushing, it was Fun times.
Gloria pizza , woolworld,
miss these days, skipping school
Good old campbells jh 218
This brings back memories. Very nice video.
Wow.l.. I didn't realize how disgusting and filthy it really was back then. I worked right off Main St. & 37th Ave for about 10 years and it was gross then... I left Main Street about 1995 and it's gotten progressively worse since then. I avoid Main Street at all costs nowadays. You should do an updated video....... BUT loved seeing Woolworth's and other places that were there way before this video was made and brought back precious memories of getting on the Q13 with my grandma as a child and going shopping with her all over main street, then lunch at the Woolworth's lunch counter or in the restaurant that Macy's used to have!!!!
One thing that isn't shown in the video is the amount of bleach those businesses used to dump into the streets back then. Suffice it to say, I had to turn a lot of sweat pants into shorts back in those days.
If only I can travel back in time, I’d do everything different.
What would you do differently?
I was born in 1991. I was 7 when This was recored. Man how the times have changed :(
damn you're just a kid. I was 25. you millennials missed out growing up in the 70's and 80's.
NotAnonymous I’m 29 now. Yeah I wish I was born in the 80s 😔 I would give up all I have just to go live in the 80s for a day.
Spent my first 63 years living in walking distance of these videos. Downtown was more my turf thirty years before video was made. I don’t miss Flushing at all.
holy shit entertainment world arcade.
that and chameleon comics were my mains
One of my favorite shopping areas back then! I used to go there every other month.
Thank you for sharing - without judgement.
Damn! I grew up on Kissena Blvd. 43-70. Skyline towers. Apt 4J. Entire 80's. Went to PS 120 and IS 237. Thanks for posting this. Brings back so many memories
11:21 Hard to believe the RKO Keith's Theater is still vacant and boarded up ! I drive by it everyday!
What a shame about the RKO that was a beautiful movie theater. And adventures in off of London place I used to walk there with my uncle through the dumps when there was dumps there to get free sauerkraut now I don't recognize every anything anymore it doesn't even look like the United States I miss the food the pizza and the big pretzels oh my my, I left New York in 81 and to see the way it looks now it breaks my heart. Thank God for people putting them memories on CZcams. God bless everybody stay safe and be kind peace out 👍🦋🙏😊🌼
Completely torn down in recent years
The flower shop under the subway overpass is still there? That coffee shop counter in Woolworth's, I had banana splits and sundaes there as a child. I loved the chocolate frozen custard they used to sell in the store! OMG. Gertz! My mom used to buy our clothes there. I took the Q65 to hs in College Point. The RKO. The best theater ever! Still can't believe it's gone.
+Mara Violet That flower shop is long gone. They replaced it with a noodle stand but even they closed shop a few years ago. There's nothing in that space now.
I grew up in flushing..remember the early 70s..Main st. With my friends...Jans...movie theater...so much...went back recently with my own daughter...sadly...it's nothing like it was then...it's another world
Same here ,the RKO theater now all thrashed it was great back then early seventies it was great I met people from around the world,made great friends .It was a once in a lifetime event for me
Wow. I had just turned 20. Lived on Bowne and 38 for years.
hmmmm yo did you know IVAN or crazy pete?
Thanks. Spent many week-ends on that block that month and that very day. Miss it especially the restaurants and the record store right on Main st where the busses stopped.
The flushing now compared to this looks so different! I am barely recognize some places lol
I really missed the good old days and I want to go back in times
Damn! the memories...
Thank G-d for the Chinese who came and turned Flushing into a vibrant business hub. I hope the development comes to include more cultural /artistic offerings. I'd love it if downtown Flushing had more late night vibrancy. Anyway, great video. I've subscribed to your channel.
ElliotWORLD I was so happy the neighborhood turned around too into a bustling, vibrant, thriving area with a strong economic backbone. What an improvement compared to what the area use to look like in the 1980s!
you clearly are on drugs. oh, and hate non asian people.
It's so eerie seeing the Wendy's (14:32) where all those people got murdered... sends shivers down my spine.
Natt0416x wait what never heard of this
@@kittyshrooms428 google it, its crazy only two people survived
i love that wendy, they closed for good after the shooting
I used to go to that Wendys a lot after school to get Biggie fries. That massacre was insane. I remember one guy survived by playing possum and the other survived with a bullet in the head. I used to walk through that part lf Main Street to catch the Q15, it was pandemonium. I had never seen that many news channels in Flushing before. It was so huge that Dave Thomas came to Flushing for a memorial at Queens Botanical Garden. That must've been right before he passed away.
🙏🏾🙏🏾🙏🏾
I grew up there in the 70’s. Does anyone remember Vito’s pizzeria, Hallmark stationary on the corner, Genovese, Lug a Jug, Rubens, Cold cut city, Gertz, S. Klein, Dan’s Supermarket, Korvettes, Thom McAnn, Key Food...? (^^)
remember Marshalls diner and on Main there was a little up stairs record shop. And don't forget the Prospect theater.
I remember Stern's because I used to use their bathroom because it was cleaner than McDonald's!
@s.klein gertz I remember all of those!
@@Justine_Marie Yeah, those places were where I used to hang out after school to get some snacks, baseball cards Italian ices etc… too bad kids don’t play outside much now but I wish I can go back to those simpler days! So many good memories back then!!(^^)
born and raised their,was 19 in 97. what a year 97 was,I was a beast with Glow Sticks..lmao!! Flushing is awesome!
20 in 1997 here
I will be 64 this January 2021. To me, 1997 wasn't that long ago. I was an adult then also and sometimes it seems strange that within that time people were born, went thru school and graduated college and started families. To them, this is ancient history. I remember what this area looked like back in the 70s when I was a teenager. Believe it or not, not much different. Stores changed, as well as the way people dressed. The styles of cars and buses and trains.
Caldor was like a landmark...i lived on 41 ave and 147 street for 17 years i live in bayside now...miss the old days
For my flushing peeps.
4:35 is an eerie shot
That entire sky was open in 1997. Today it’s filled with skyscrapers. Hotels and skyview towers
Well done, I knew the place well during the 1950's and 1960's when it was still European in nature, now without RKO Keiths, Nedicks, Gertz, Woolworths etc it is just another version of Shanghai but as it is said, ''You can' never go Back''
I was born in 1997! I feel old watching this and I'm bout to turn 25 in June! I miss the days when we didn't had to worry about a pandemic.
Woah. It's actually august 3,2017 well technically now 8/4 but it's midnight. But still it's like 20years ago. I was only a year old.
Michelle Luzuriaga ...ok
Oh man the Arcade spot on Main St shitttt that bought back memories
I loved the arcade at 11:47 as a kid, and used to go there often with my dad between 1997-1999; recognize some of the games I'd plunked down quarters on at the time! Lots of other small video game stores going down the street up until Northern Blvd, which as a gaming geek was totally my jam. Remember the Chinese indoor mall, as well asCoconuts and The Wiz (prior to its closing).
We'd often eat at the infamous Wendy's, and I remember being shocked as hell when it became the site of that massacre in May 2000. By then I'd stopped visiting Main St. for a while, and would not walk down that street again until last summer, 19 years later. It felt like I'd stepped into another world as everything was unrecognizable. Didn't the wholesale gentrification there begin in the early 2000's?
That place was around in the 80s too. I was surprised it lasted into the 90s because Playstation was often better than arcades.
@@user-or6yn8pm3c It was in the late ‘90’s-early ‘00’s that arcades such as this one started rapidly disappearing from NYC streets. Rising real estate prices, gentrification, arcades at times being a magnet for anti-social activity, and technology.
You have a point: I owned console ports of several of the games featured in this video around this time. Some (like Tekken 2 - PS1) were better at home than in the arcade.
@@danram7167 Playstation was the first home system that was better than the arcades. I remember Sega tried it with the Genesis and Nintendo with the SNES. They were great but still below arcades.
man the models and mcd still there,
this guy took all the best shots
I was born there in 1962. It's changed so much
Hi James where were you born? Flushing Hospital or Parsons,or Booth Memorial?
@@---Avalon---Sky--- Flushing Hospital.
@@tessietut I was also same year,but in Parsons on Northern Blvd and Parsons now long abandoned.I used to live by the Bohack, supermarket near the library by the expressway and Main St.If you have a email,I got some nice old time videos,that magically take you back,you may have seen them,I loved the old simple days, everything was slow carefree simple,but good,real music,and nobody stuck to their phones.Nice to meet a fellow flushinger Take it ez,and God Bless
@@---Avalon---Sky--- I lived at 157th St and Sanford Ave. Went to P.S.22
I love these videos. Thanks CZcams.
go to 10:22 ... that white honda accord at the light was only 3 years old, if not brand new
11:48 oh yeah... entertainment world arcade.. back then, online computer games was still in infancy
The amount of money I spent at Entertainment World playing X-Men vs Street Fighter and Cruisin World is astronomical.
Ill have to view this again. It’s possible I’m in it somewhere. I lived in Flushing at this time. I had a tiny loft apartment in an old house on Barclay St.
@13:47 Can you believe Modell's just closed, recently?
The neighborhood was much more mixed back then, despite it being a Chinatown. There were still a lot of Caucasians and even more South East Asians. There were a little bit more Koreans. Now it is all Chinese.
I see some Indians there not now. Also starting to see Korean in this vid
EnnesX actually it was Fujianese who from mainland then stop in HK for a bit and then come ovrr
I'm go to flushing high school always see mixed but thier is still lots of asian and mixed asians but mostly hispanic too
Flushing truly was a melting pot back then. I spent the entire 80's growing up on Kissena. It definitely was a lot more mixed back then. Flushing wasn't the Chinatown that it is now. The extent of Chinatown in the 80's as I remember it was a couple of blocks on Roosevelt. That was it. Most of my friends were Black, White, and Hispanic. I'm Korean btw. As I've recently looked at some class photos from PS 120 when I attended in the 80's I'm one of the very few Asians in them. I wonder what the racial makeup of that school is today. I'm guessing majority Asian given the fact of what Main St. looks like today. And what is the racial makeup of Skyline Towers at 43-70 Kissena Blvd. where I grew up? Anyone?
@@jfk2lax What happened is that during the 1970s/80s, a large influx of Taiwanese Chinese people mainly Mandarin speaking were moving into NYC and due to their cultural, socioeconomic, and dialectal linguistic barriers with the then mainly low income working class Cantonese Chinatown in Manhattan at the time in addition to poor housing conditions, many settled in Flushing Queens where they could afford the more middle class style housing and they slowly created a more Mandarin speaking middle class Chinatown, which at the time was not that large and more mixed in with the other populations as you even said. But later on, a large influx of Chinese immigrants coming from all parts of mainland China mainly speaking Mandarin and middle class also started arriving into NYC and largely started to settle in with the Taiwanese population in Flushing where they could just easily communicate in Mandarin with them socioeconomically and culturally and that is why Flushing Chinatown dramatically grew so large becoming almost like a city within a city and even becoming the Chinese cultural center of NYC with many various regional Chinese cultures which now the mainland Chinese immigrants are the overwhelming majority whereas the Chinatowns of Manhattan and Brooklyn are mainly limited to Cantonese and Fuzhou cultures whom are more working class populations.
great video,, i used to drink with my friends in top of the parking lot,, i was like 18 at the time ,,
I remember when Woolworth closed...a sad day. This video shows the large Asian influx by this time. I remember there was a time when it seemed like there was going to be a big Indian influx but that seemed to pale when Chinese started buying Flushing up. Its true it not the same but I find there is very little poverty, welfare recipients, people take care of their kids, pay their bills & they WORK hard. The TV show Person Of Interest was filmed on the street where the LIRR steps are on 39th Ave, Roosevelt Ave & Main St. It substituted for Tokyo. Id like more signs in English.
This was b4 I was born and I go to flushing every weekend to shop and eat so to me its stunning how much it changed. You have new tall buildings everywhere. Its the chinatown of queens. Its quite amazing how different it changed.
I lived there in the late 70s after I married & my husband was born in Flushing & moved to Stonybrook LI in 1980. I loved living there but the homes were to expensive so we moved to LI. Its different but I still like it because it still has that energy about it & I have all the great memories. I lived on 137th & 29 th ave by the Botanical Gardens.
+NYC girl How cool! Especially by the Botanical Gardens. Really interesting and fascinating. Thanks for sharing. 😃
@@NYCgirl927 Homes in Flushing were
Expensive in the late 70s & 80s ?
Well it's worse now of course.
All homes in Flushing,Fresh Meadows,
Whitestone,Bayside,Little Neck,
Douglaston & Great Neck now sell for 1.4 million dollars.
New York will NEVER be the same ever again since middle class people can no longer afford any decent neighborhood in the 5 boroughs.
I say to everyone unless you make
100,000 dollars or more per year just forget about the 5 boroughs or some areas in Nassau county.
I was born & raised in Flushing.....I now live in Great Neck
I used to go to the Kennedy Fried Chicken that the bus ran into
Lion-O Richie is that place still closed?
It's reopened.
I remember this era well. Right before I started junior high school. Entertainment World was the name of the arcade, I spent countless quarters there. On the same block was Chameleon’s Comics and Cards, my go-to spot for Spawn comics, Marvel and NBA trading cards. Earlier that year my father purchased dress shoes for my elementary school graduation at Father and Sons. I remember Woolworth, I probably bought school supplies for junior high before they closed. That was the place to be for school supplies.
The Wiz and Coconuts were my go-to spots for music and video games. Dr. Jay’s for kicks and gear. And this was when Modells used to sell decent kicks. In their final years, they would only sell trash.
I remember when they were building the new library and temporarily relocated the library further up Main Street, close to Northern Blvd.
KFC, Gloria’s and Barones was the Triangle of calories. Lots of pizza and chicken and wedges were purchased.
Wendy’s was fairly new. Used to go there after school sometimes for Biggie fries with my friends. Before the horrific Wendy’s Massacre of 2000.
I miss Flushing Queens back in the 90 it was fun going out there and it still a beautiful place to be i miss seeing the Queens surface bus line Q25 and Q34 and QBX1 busses Classic reminisce
Try going back to about 1970 even better,it was a great place made alot of friends,a once in lifetime thing.People from around the world.
I hated when Queens Surface would go on strike. They seemed to always time it with finals/regents. Bastards.
seems like it was only Yesterday... Woolworth, Sterns and Alexander’s back In the 80s to early 90s... That Nail Salon in the beginning minute (forgot exact time) was one of the 1st to open in the nation..... AOL banner on the MTA bus. Lol ....
28 was always bay terrace huh.. have any other neighborhoods in Queens by any chance?
7:51 the bus used to stop on the other side?
nice presentation
I remember living in Flushing up to 1982. Lum's was the only Chinese restaurant at that time.
Wow.. I was 22 . Times have changed.
nice video I subbed
7:47 that street used to run like that ? Now its all one way traffic in the opposite direction
is it the 1993 orion vs
Yeah the Q16 used to also stop there.
@5:27 my childhood apartment I am so glad it is still there they haven't teared it down
Elevator buildings outside Manhattan are almost never torn down.
NOSTALGIA😞💔
Damn I'm only 12 and I never knew the places I was on everyday was like this
1997 my lucky year wish there was video of Kew Gardens from 1997
@6:25 lol AOL you got mail 😃
Rest In To Woolworth store in 1997 !
I'd like to see video of flushing from the 70s or earlier if anybody has it.
Same
ah, the boys who played basketball by the LIRR and the girls who loved them so. almost thought I saw my first love there for a second.
"Please don't litter" 👁👄👁
I miss ny in the 90’s too. It was real cool.
yep that's it too!
Loving those street preachers
looks so much like the 80s
Gloria Pizza, is the best pizza ever.
Before I graduated from college, I was so poor and I couldn't buy a Christmas gift from Caldor for my mom. I would never forget that and I'd learned to donate my money to the poor these days!
Wheres the guy who would sing with a electric key board on his shoulder in front of Macy's?
Likely dead, if you mean the blind, older black gentleman that played an accordion while sitting on some sort of stool. I have two different photographs of him.
ahhh yes the blind man eyes was always was closed standing with his cup in one hand playing the accordian ...awww cool guy i always felt bad for that guy when i walked past him..he was a white guy with light brown hair
@@trainluvr Hi Train liver,great video,my dad is in this videi do you know what day in the summer this was?Thank you
I lived there, not far from where this video was made and several decades before 1997. This area was my turf, also where my two kids were born and raised. Here, I found myself rushing to catch the #7 train into Manhattan every morning. Everything was so very different back then. To start with, people were different and belonged to a more educated rung in the ladder of life. How it has changed, for the worst, it seems, but then again, nothing stays the same these days. What a shame. I’m glad I will never have to go there again.
The arcade!!!!!
Im going there by tomorrow
no way.. the woman @ 16:05.. is she the one dollar lady??
***** so glad someone noticed this. I almost had a heart attack seeing it. Looks EXACTLY like her with thicker hair. STILL THERE TO THIS DAY!!!
***** That ain't no lady, that's my wife!
+minty I'm so glad everyone knows the ONE DOLLAR Lady.
id say yes, thats for sure her
+minty
Damn that was then. Now 2016. I still see her very often. The weirdest thing is, she haven't aged at all.
Hell, I would have gone out there just to have crammed some GLORIA PIZZA into my face. And I did. Frequently. Religiously.
13:47 ;c Models is gonna close the whole entire store at that location ;cc