By Phil Newman
What is now Rego Park was farmland for centuries until the German-born businessman Henry Schloh bought out produce gardeners and in 1923 built hundreds of eight-room houses that sold for $7,500 each.
And also like so many parts of Queens, Rego Park has gained a reputation as a place with a pleasant, suburban-like environment and good schools.
Situated between Elmhurst, Middle Village and Forest Hills, Rego Park is home to more than 55,000 people who make up a largely middle-class population. Many of the most recent arrivals are from South America, Asia and the former Soviet Union.
Vincent Seyfried, perhaps the most eminent Queens historian, writes in the Encyclopedia of New York that Rego Park’s boundaries are Queens Boulevard on the north, Yellowstone Boulevard on the east, the intersection of Yellowstone and Woodhaven Boulevards on the south and Woodhaven Boulevard on the west.
The story of the enclave’s name origin is known to most of the inhabitants: Schloh’s construction firm was called the Real Good Construction Co. and he used the “Re” from Real, the “go” from Good and added Park to give the real estate appellation a touch of elegance.
In the 17th Century what is now Rego Park was known as Middleburgh and in 1673, according to the Queens Historical Society, it had a population of 99 white men who almost exclusively were farmers. Much of the non-arable land was marshes.
Rego Park's modern era dates back to 1923.
After building 525 houses with a loan from the Bank of Manhattan (now Chase), Schloh put up apartment houses including the Remo Hall at 61-04 Saunders St., Jupiter Court at 62-84 Saunders St. and Marion Court at 62-98 Saunders St. in the late 1920s.
Schloh also built a Shell service station at 63rd Drive and Austin Street in 1928.
Schloh personally paid for construction of a Long Island Rail Road station in Rego Park in 1928. The railroad eliminated the stop in 1953 because of low ridership and the LIRR station was demolished about 40 years ago. The subway line to Union Turnpike began service in 1936.
Rego Park is lumped in with neighboring Forest Hills in Community Board 6 and has been frequently compared favorably with Forest Hills although some residents say homes and apartments are cheaper in Rego Park.
“It is not a slight to most people in Rego Park to be considered, however incorrectly, as a part of Forest Hills,” said Jeff Gottlieb, a Queens historian.
Teen-agers of Rego Park attend neighboring Forest Hills High.
One of the neighborhoods most imposing landmarks is Lefrak City, the huge housing complex built between 1962 and 1967.
Over the past five or six decades, Rego Park has been home to many celebrities and at least one of what might be called a celebrity home.
Lost Battalion Hall, at 93-29 Queens Blvd., is the site of a wide range of shows and activities. It was built in 1939 to honor a unit of the 77th Division of the U.S. Army for heroism in France in World War I.
The house shown during opening credits on the long-running 1970s CBS television comedy “All in the Family” on Cooper Avenue and long thought to have been located in Glendale is actually in Rego Park. In the sitcom, the house was located at the fictional address of 704 Hauser St. in Astoria.
The late actor Carroll O’Connor, a native of Manhattan who was brought up in the Bronx and Forest Hills, at one time attended Newtown High School.
Other entertainers and noted citizens who have lived in Rego Park include New York Knicks basketball star Willis Reed, music arranger Burt Bacharach, the Hovic sisters, better known as Gypsy Rose Lee and June Havoc, actor Eddie Bracken, airline magnate Frank Lorenzo, dancer Vera Ellen, singer and actress Alice Faye, comedian Lew Lehr, TV star Sid Caesar, NBC President Fred Silverman, Miss America Bess Myerson and Marvin Middlemark, inventor of the rabbit ears indoor television antenna.
“People have found that Rego Park is a nice place to live and to raise a family,” Gottlieb said.
