Astoria

Astoria ASTORIA Everything around the world has its own history and features, even my small apartment has its history. While I am taking urban sociology class, I became curious about the history and community of Astoria where I live. Astoria is a part of Queens, one of five boroughs. Astoria settled in the 17th century known as Hallets Cove, which renamed in honor of John Jacob Astor a millionaire in 1839. John Jacob Astor, a German-born immigrants to the United States, donated $500 to the village’s young ladies’ seminary. Then, Astoria got its name by Steven Halsey after name of John Jacob Astor. Since 1830s urbanizing force, population of Queens increased. And in 1839 Astoria became the first village to be officially founded within Queens since the 17th century. Astoria had been the center of New York’s Greek-American community. More and more Greeks had immigrated especially during the Greek Civil War from 1944 to 1949. The large number of immigration of Greek resulted the largest group of first generation immigrants in Astoria in 1980. However, Greek-American population dropped from 22,579 in 1980 to 18,127 in 1990. In 1996, First-generation Greek-Americans in Astoria did not even rank among top ten immigrant groups. The decline in astoria, street, population, people, new, greek, built, restaurants, opened, one, avenue, area, trash, steinway, queens, mansion, immigrants, house, community, city, century, bridge, became, bars, york, visitors, system, subway, studios, small, shopping, saloon, restaurant, residents, overpass, name, living, largest, large, john, jacob, history, growing, greek-americans, food, even, enjoy, during, ave, apartment