All Aboard The Seven Line
By Gloria Sanders

The next stop on the No. 7 line after 111th Street-Corona is 103rd Street-Corona Plaza, where we enter a new neighborhood with a completely different culture and lifestyle. At this stop, the bustling streets intersecting Roosevelt Avenue are filled with shoppers and commuters, mostly blue collar, trying to get to work. Previously known as West Flushing, Corona, from the Latin word for “crown”, received its name in 1872 as the “crown jewel” of Long Island. Long an Italian neighborhood, corona changed dramatically after World War II, when a new group of immigrants, most Hispanic, began settling here. It is now home to predominantly Colombian, Dominican, Ecuadorian and Puerto Rican groups, making it the site of one of the largest minority groups in New York City. The Plaza, an independent movie house and the only remaining movie theater in Corona, shows films in Spanish or with Spanish subtitles.

You can get a taste of the prevailing culture at the numerous ethnic restaurants in the area and at the pushcart on 104th Street, where everything from empanadas to quesadillas are available while you wait. One of the few remaining Italian eateries is the Lemon Ice King, which offers 35 different flavors of Italian ices.

Corona has been home to a number of famous residents, among them filmmaker Martin Scorsese and jazz musician Louis Armstrong. The modest brick house Armstrong’s wife, Lucille, bought for the trumpet and cornet player in 1943, and where he lived until his death in 1974, is now a museum.