The 500 students of Immaculate Conception School in Jamaica Estates staged a mass march down Midland Parkway recently – to dedicate a marker honoring the founders of the neighborhood.
The concept of a historical plaque honoring real estate developers Ernestus Gulick and Felix Isman was the brainchild of the school’s Aquinas Honor Society. The group of academically gifted students recently published a softcover book on the history of Jamaica Estates through the Arcadia Publishing Company.
After documenting their work and composing the text, outlining the origins of “Jamaica Estates – A Residential Park,” these wunderkind’s efforts were realized, with funding through State Senator Frank Padavan, on Friday, April 23.
“This project was made in an effort to know our own roots,” said newly-elected Society president Gabriella Ulloa, who described the nearly year-long project of collecting the data and rare photographs that led to the plaque – and thanked school officials and Padavan, whose $2,000 grant made it possible.
After the march, the attendees were entertained by the school’s band, conducted by Tracey Pratt, and choir, directed by Ed Burkard, before the hunter green and beige marker –the colors of the Jamaica Estates Association – was unveiled by a group of dignitaries including Padavan; Jamaica Estates Association President Howard Fried; longtime resident and neighborhood advocate Michael Bookbinder; Principal Dorothea Breen and Aquinas Society moderator Carl Ballenas.
The marker is on the center mall of Midland Parkway, the centerpiece of the neighborhood designed by well known landscape architect Charles W. Leavitt, who also designed Belmont Racetrack in 1904.
