Jamaica Avenue Revisited

The ten Queens blocks along Jamaica Avenue from 170th to 160th Street, changed as they are, produced an effect on this native New Yorker today that was closer to sadness than disorientation.  There was just enough of the grimy old leaking through the grimy new to add to the pathos.  Our politicians promised a bright and shiny Jamaica shopping center once the elevated trains left the street; this never happened. 

Paradoxically, the darkness which the elevated BMT created on Jamaica Avenue added to the street's vitality and allure.  It brought shoppers from Woodhaven and central Brooklyn directly to B. Gertz and Macy's department stores, VIM Appliances, and B&B Clothing, as well as moviegoers to the Valencia, the Alden, or the Merrick to see the latest Holywood releases.

The Jamaica line hosted the 15 and 13 trains in 1960  (now the J and Z  starting from distant Jamaica Center at Parsons Boulevard and Archer Avenue), and made possible a direct, slow, though fascinating trip along Jamaica Avenue, a hairpin turn at Elderts Lane, to Broadway Junction, Brooklyn and ultimately to Broad Street, Manhattan.  

The BMT terminal station offices at 165th Street, sporting a 1986 refacing of the 1911 building, looked a bit less grimy this morning, but they have gone incognito and become just another nondescript building on a motley shopping street filled with uninviting discount stores. 

Of course, Jamaica Avenue never boasted the smart shops of Fifth Avenue, Manhattan, but it was a street that drew exuberant middle-class shoppers and quality merchandise in stores that invited entrance and identified with the neighborhood.  

B. Gertz, for example, offered a free visit to Santa's Village and Rudolph the Reindeer, a display that filled half of one of its floors at Christmastime.  Each child received a small gift, whether or not the accompanying parent could  afford the twenty-five cents, all of which the store contributed to charity. 

Obviously, America itself has changed in half a century.  Shopping has migrated to online merchants and big box stores, but the human loss is palpable.  We have lost our Santa, metaphorically and actually.  

Walking these ten blocks of what was once an important family shopping center evokes a hasty wish for another Rudolph, maybe another Mike, or maybe a realignment of priorities, quick responses to difficult problems with no guarantees of anything positive.