Welcome to the Big Six Towers

Woodside is in the western portion of the NYC borough of Queens. It is bordered on the south by Maspeth, on the north by Astoria, on the west by Sunnyside and on the east by Elmhurst and Jackson Heights. Woodside was settled in the late 17^th century by Joseph Sackett, but did not grow substantially until the 1800s. Benjamin W. Hitchcock and journalist John Andrew Kelly were among the first developers in the 1860s. Kelly built a home called “Woodside” after the nearby forests. In 1867, Hitchcock purchased a 115-acre farm, divided it into more than 1,000 building lots, and sold them in 1869, generating the first massive building in the new village of Woodside.

With large scale residential development in the 1860s, Woodside became the largest Irish American community in Queens. In the early 1930s, the area was approximately 80% Irish. Even as the neighborhood has seen growth in ethnic diversity today, the area still retains a strong Irish American presence. There are a number of Irish pubs and restaurants scattered throughout Woodside.

In 1847, cholera epidemics and a shortage of burial grounds in Manhattan created the need for non-profit organizations to operate commercial cemeteries. Calvary Cemetery, only blocks from Big Six Towers, is one of the earliest of these and is run by the Catholic Archdiocese of NY.  The first burial in Calvary was in 1848 and by 1852 there were 50 burials a day, half of them the Irish poor under seven years of age. By the 1990s there were nearly 3 million burials in Calvary Cemetery including those of many famous and infamous people. The cemetery was used in the film, The Godfather, for the funeral of Don Corleone.

A series of major events changed the look of Woodside. The construction of the Queensboro Bridge and subway tracks over the East River allowed easy access of cars and trucks to and from Manhattan. Urbanization had begun. 1907 saw the first trolley car. Shortly after the bridge opened in 1909, the population of Woodside started increasing tremendously, reaching 6,000 people in 1910.

Today, Woodside is an ethnically diverse neighborhood that remains filled with working class people. In the early 1990s, many Asian American families moved into the area, particularly east of the Woodside–61st Street. Woodside has a large population of Korean-Americans, Chinese-Americans, and Filipino-Americans with their own respective ethnic enclaves. There are also South Asian Americans, particularly Indian-Americans, Bangladeshi-Americans, and Pakistani-Americans. Woodside is also home to a large Latino population, mostly from Puerto Rico, Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico, and the Dominican Republic. Reflecting its longtime diverse foods and drink, the neighborhood is filled with many cultural restaurants and pubs.