All Aboard The Seven Line
By Gloria Sanders

The next stop on the Number 7 line, also known as the “International Express”, is 82nd Street and Roosevelt Avenue, in the neighborhood of Jackson Heights.

The neighborhood was originally built to lure the middle class out of Manhattan and into an urban location with a feeling of the country. The community featured the nation's first garden apartments with garden courtyards surrounded by architecturally significant buildings equipped with fireplaces, elevators and other appealing amenities. The original population was middle- and upper class European, but now people of Hispanic descent make up more than 60 percent of the population.

The commercial district on Roosevelt Avenue offers the large and diverse Latino population plenty of shopping, medical and legal offices, bakeries, restaurants and record stores that play the latest music of the Latin culture. Thirty-six blocks of the Jackson Heights neighborhood make up the Jackson Heights Historic District. Joseph Pulitzer Intermediate School 145, named after newspaper magnate Joseph Pulitzer, is two blocks from the train stop. It features a gifted program and five Academies within the school.

The next stop on our journey on the International Express is 74th Street-Roosevelt Avenue, Queens’ own “Little India” and home to a vibrant South Asian community.