All Aboard The Seven Line
BY GLORIA SANDERS

T he next stop on the No. 7 line brings us to 61st

Street/Woodside, located right above the Long Island Rail Road Woodside station.

Woodside was first home to a community of Irish immigrants. The non-profit Emerald Isle Immigration Center located two blocks from the train stop, has been serving the Irish immigrant community for years, offering job placement, training, and counseling. The population has grown increasingly diverse in the past several years, with Koreans, South Asians, Mexicans, Dominicans and Ecuadorians living alongside the Irish residents. Serving this culturally driven community is Woodside On the Move, a community development organization that offers housing assistance and job placement and organizes cultural events for the community.

Located in the commercial area near Northern Boulevard, Queens Boulevard, Woodside Avenue and Roosevelt Avenue, are Woodside’s major shopping streets. The stores are many, the restaurants and delicatessens are diverse and the people seem to be patronizing them all.

Woodside’s housing stock consists mostly of apartment buildings and private houses. Woodside Court, the oldest apartment building in Woodside, was built in 1916, and has been in existence for almost as long as the No. 7 train.

Woodside is also famous for its Doughboy Park, ranked the 18th best park in the city by the non-profit New Yorkers for Parks. In the park stands The Returned Soldier, a statue in memory of those lost in World War I. In 1928, five years after The Returned Soldier was dedicated, the American Federation of Arts declared the statue to be “the best war memorial of its kind in the United States.”

In 1926 WWRL Radio, 1160 AM, began broadcasting from a building in Woodside with a transmitter and an antenna in its backyard. The radio station gave amateurs a chance to catch their big break on their way to stardom. One such amateur, a singer from Astoria, became known throughout the world as Ethel Merman. WWRL continued to broadcast from Woodside until early 2005, when the station relocated to Manhattan.

Next week the “International Express” will take us to our last stop in Woodside, 52nd Street/Roosevelt Avenue.