J. Kurtz & Sons Store Building
162-22 Jamaica Avenue | also 92-12 Guy R Brewer Boulevard, 162-24 Jamaica Avenue | Jamaica | built 1931
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The city photographed every building for its tax records around 1940 and again in the 1980s. NYC Municipal Archives.
Written with AI from the source each entry cites, then fact-checked.
- 1873
A Methodist Episcopal church stands on the lot before the furniture store
An earlier building: the 1873 Beers map shows a Methodist Episcopal church on this corner, part of land owned in 1836 by Henry Wilkes. The church was gone by 1895. From then until 1931 the lot held a two-story commercial building, which in 1929 housed eleven separate tenants.
- 1931
J. Kurtz & Sons opens an Art Deco furniture store in downtown Jamaica
Founded by Jacob Kurtz in 1870, the furniture chain already had three stores, including its first on State Street in Brooklyn, when it built this one. Jamaica was then a major shopping hub for Queens and much of Long Island, served since 1913 by the Long Island Rail Road station and, five years later, by elevated trains. Kurtz sold furniture here continuously until 1978.
“The building was erected in 1931 as a retail store for the furniture chain of J. Kurtz & Sons. This company had been founded in 1870 by Jacob Kurtz…”
- 1931
Kurtz's architects give a six-story store skyscraper motifs to catch the eye of el riders
The Kurtz family asked Allmendinger & Schlendorf, who had remodeled other stores in the chain, for a thoroughly modern building that would stop passengers on the elevated train along Jamaica Avenue. Black and white glazed-tile pylons climb the three-bay Jamaica Avenue front and the six-bay side, above a base of black tile and cast-aluminum bands with lightning-like motifs, and silver skyscraper outlines were painted on many window panes. M. Allen Schlendorf later recalled that his long admiration for Frank Lloyd Wright shaped the design.
- 1981
The former Kurtz store becomes a landmark after the chain moves out
Kurtz sold the building to other retailers in 1978, and its sales floors were split up among several tenants while the exterior stayed intact. The Landmarks Preservation Commission designated it in 1981 as a rare example of Art Deco in Queens; one witness spoke in favor at the 1980 hearing and none opposed.
“The Jamaica store was used continuously by the Kurtz firm until 1978, at which time it was sold to other retailers.”
Further reading
- J. Kurtz and Sons Store BuildingWikipedia
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