The College Point peninsula lies at the juncture of the Flushing River, Flushing Bay, the Bronx River, and the East River. The western side is directly across from La Guardia airport. The north looks out toward Riker’s Island and the east lies under the shadow of the Whitestone Bridge.

College Point is named for St. Paul’s College, which existed from only 1835-1850. Originally farmland, the area was gradually transformed into a lovely waterside recreation area with visitors spilling over from William Steinway’s North Beach resort, and hotels and saloons springing up to catch the overflow. As the area developed, many elegant Victorian homes were built, some of which remain on shady streets towards the north. Much of the northern coast is residential with a park named after
local sculptor, Herman MacNeil. The park is on the site of the former Chisholm Mansion where Mayor LaGuardia summered in 1937. Verdant Powell’s Cove occupies most of the eastern shores of College Point. A century ago Tallman’s Island off the northern edge was a popular picnic site. Now, connected by landfill, the area is a sewage treatment plant. The west side of the College Point peninsula’s shoreline, with the exception of the massive St. Lawrence Cement factory and a few remaining dilapidated bungalows, is a largely decaying industrial wasteland, much of which is cut off from public access. A sanitation garage where trash is loaded onto barges lies directly across from La Guardia Airport creating a combination of seagulls and airplanes potentially lethal to anyone traveling by air.

In 1852, Conrad Poppenhusen, an immigrant from Hamburg, Germany, moved to what was still a rural village to expand his business operation and build one of the first major industrial complexes, the American Hard Rubber Company, which produced the then newly developed vulcanized rubber for Charles Goodyear.

Poppenhusen’s American Rubber Manufacturing Company was to be a utopian ideal of work and life for his employees. His vision included homes and parks, numerous streets, the First Reformed Church, and the Poppenhusen Institute. He also is credited with establishing one of the first free kindergartens in the United States. This kindergarten was structured around the ideals of the famous German philosopher and educator Friedrich Froebel, whose radical educational system is considered to have
contributed to the aesthetic and pedagogical components of the Bauhaus. Notable artists and architects educated in Froebel’s principals include Frank Lloyd Wright, Buckminster Fuller, Wassily Kandinsky and Piet Mondrian, among others.

Poppenhusen founded College Point by incorporating the neighborhoods of Flammersburg and Strattonport. Poppenhusen was also responsible in part for the first electric transportation system, the Flushing and North Side Railroad, connecting College Point and Flushing with ferries to Manhattan. Ultimately these lines would consolidate into what is now the Long Island Railroad. Other industry in the area included silk ribbon factories and several breweries.

College Point also has a history of aviation. The Flushing Airport was located here and was New York’s busiest airport until North Beach Airport, later renamed LaGuardia airport (1939), was expanded just across Flushing Bay. North Beach Airport has
enjoyed an earlier incarnation as the aforementioned North Beach resort owned by William Steinway of Steinway pianos. EDO Aircraft Corp., the second oldest aerospace company in the United States, was founded in a shed here in 1925 by Earl Dodge
Osborn, inventor of aluminum floats for seaplanes. Osborn’s early designs were used by pioneering aviators Charles Lindbergh, Amelia Earhart and Admiral Richard Byrd.