Queens Plaza Court Building
41-43 28th Street | also 28-11 Queens Plaza North, 41-42 29th Street | Dutch Kills | built 1914
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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.
- 1912
Queens Plaza Court opens and the Queens Chamber of Commerce moves in from Jamaica
W. Elmer Payntar's Queens Plaza Court Company bought the Bridge Plaza North site in 1911 for about $175,000 and opened a four-story office building there in 1912, built to carry more floors later. In September 1912 the Queens Chamber of Commerce relocated here from Jamaica, and the Long Island City Savings Bank arrived from Hunters Point. The New York Telephone Company took space in 1913.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1914
The NYPD sets up a Queens detectives headquarters, with a dormitory, in the building
Under Police Commissioner Arthur H. Woods, the police department established a base for the Queens detective force here in 1914, with offices and a dormitory. By 1919 the building, then called Long Island City's largest office building, was becoming the Electric Building, home to a predecessor of Consolidated Edison.
“In 1914 under Police Commissioner Arthur H. Woods, the NYPD established a headquarters for the detectives force of Queens in the building, including office space and a dormitory.”
Source: Wikipedia
- 1944
The Army turns the Electric Building into barracks for a wartime Christmas-mail post office
In August 1944 a 500,000-square-foot Army Post Office built by the Army Corps of Engineers opened on the old Madison Square Garden Bowl site along Sunnyside Yard to ship Christmas parcels to troops overseas. The New York Port of Embarkation took over this building and refitted it to house the post office's workforce of 2,000 to 4,000 soldiers, and the power company moved its staff to Astoria.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1946
Pan American World Airways moves in and opens a ninth-floor Skyline Room
Pan Am moved into the upper eight floors in November 1946 on a 20-year lease, using them for its systems offices, training departments and New York reservations unit, and the building became known as the Pan Am Building. The ninth-floor Skyline Room ballroom opened on February 21, 1947, and in October 1948 the hub of an automatic AT&T ticketing network linking airports was installed here.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1964
The city opens a computerized traffic control center that still watches its streets from here
City agencies moved in during February 1964 after Pan Am left for Midtown. On December 17, 1964, the Traffic Department opened a center for a new citywide computerized traffic system, running a UNIVAC 1004 card processor; it survives as the Traffic Management Center, which controls signals across the city. The city bought the building outright in 1974 for $5.25 million.
Source: Wikipedia
Further reading
- Queens Plaza Court BuildingWikipedia
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