Laurel Court

33-05 82nd Street | also 82-02 Northern Boulevard | Jackson Heights | built 1914

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.

1913
The Queensboro Corporation starts building its first Jackson Heights apartments at Laurel Court
Having dropped an early idea of concrete cottages and sold land in parcels, the Queensboro Corporation began building on its own in 1913-14 with Laurel Court, four five-story brick apartment houses at the southeast corner of 82nd Street and Northern Boulevard. The corner was picked for its trolley stop on the line to Manhattan. George Henry Wells planned the group under the 1901 Tenement House Act, which capped lot coverage at seventy percent.
“Queensboro was not directly involved in construction until 1913-14 when it erected a group of four five-story brick apartment houses, collectively known as Laurel Court…”
Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission
1914
Laurel Court's corner building gets shops on Northern Boulevard and its entrance on 82nd Street
The northernmost of the four Laurel Court buildings was laid out with its long side and residential entrance on 82nd Street and a storefront on the ground floor of its Northern Boulevard side. Wells drew on the Edwardian neo-classicism of England, with brick walls, stone trim and metal-clad three-sided oriels. By 1993 the only surviving original cornice in the whole group was the one on this building's Northern Boulevard front.
“…the original cornice survives only at the Northern Boulevard facade of the northernmost building.”
Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

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