Lindenwood Queens

Lindenwood is a section of Howard Beach, developed in the 1950s and 1960s on landfill property. It is part of New Howard Beach, as opposed to Old Howard Beach. The neighborhood primarily consists of six-story, orange- or red-brick apartment buildings constructed in the early to mid-1960s, smaller co-op “garden-apartments” (four-unit red-brick buildings) from the 1950s visible from the Belt Parkway, and two-family homes built in the 1960s. The high-rise buildings are either co-ops (red bricks) or condominiums (orange bricks). Heritage House East and West (84-39 and 84-29 153rd Avenue) were among the first condominium buildings in New York State. Additional townhouses near the Brooklyn border were built in the 1970s, 1990s, and 2000s. The high-rises, once very family-friendly with playgrounds, have since converted these areas into sitting spaces and no longer allow dogs. Lindenwood’s residents are primarily ethnic Jewish and Italian, with some Hispanic residents.

At the heart of the neighborhood is P.S. 232, an elementary school built in the early 1960s (now known as the Walter Ward School, named after the neighborhood’s late longtime City councilman) and the Lindenwood Shopping Center, which includes a supermarket and about 20 stores. In the early 1970s, a second supermarket called the Village was located behind the shopping center. After failing, the building was repurposed as a mall, flea market, bingo hall, private school, and finally a walk-in medical center. There is also a small strip mall on Linden Boulevard, next to the Lindenwood Diner.

When the Jewish population was larger, they had a synagogue named Temple Judea in Lindenwood, located on 153rd Ave and 80th Street. The building was converted into apartments after the temple merged with the Howard Beach Jewish Center in Rockwood Park. The neighborhood once had two pool clubs, one on 88th Street and 151st Ave, which were converted to walk-up apartments in the early 1970s. Another club, across from P.S. 232, was redeveloped into townhouses in 1980, adjacent to a branch of Queens County Savings Bank (formerly Columbia Savings Bank). There used to be a tennis bubble on 153rd Ave and 79th Street, developed around 1980.