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Forest Hills Gardens is a community located in Forest Hills, in the New York City borough of Queens. Its streets are privately owned but open to traffic. The Northern Border runs along the L.I.R.R. tracks and Burns Street, the western along Dartmouth Street and Herrick Street, the eastern along Union Turnpike, and the southern border along Kessel Street, Roman Street and Harrow Street.
The area consists of a 142-acre (0.57 km2) development, fashioned after a traditional English Village, that is one of America's oldest planned communities and the most prominent American example of Ebenezer Howard's Garden city movement. The community, founded in 1908, consists of about 800 homes, townhouses, and apartment buildings, mostly in Tudor, Brick Tudor or Georgian style, in a parklike setting designed by Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr., son of noted landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted and partner in the Olmsted Brothers firm. Designed with transportation access in mind, the community's central square is adjacent to the Forest Hills Long Island Rail Road station. The largest apartment buildings stand closest to the station, while more distant buildings are smaller and have larger yards. Although most buildings are single-family homes, the development also includes garden apartment buildings and retail space. Today, the area contains some of the most expensive housing in the borough of Queens.
Architect Grosvenor Atterbury proposed an innovative construction method for some of the houses, most notably on Park End Place: each house was built from approximately 170 standardized precast concrete panels, fabricated off-site and positioned by crane. The system was sophisticated even by modern standards: for example, panels were cast with integral hollow insulation chambers.
The streets were fully laid-out in 1910, many of them winding specifically to discourage through-traffic (see Street hierarchy). Though Forest Hills Gardens is private property, it is not a gated community and through traffic, both automotive and pedestrian, is permitted. Street parking, however, is restricted to community residents; visitors must know a resident or face fine and wheel clamping. The project was almost completed by the mid-1960s when all but the last few remaining lots were developed.
In 2007, Forest Hills Gardens was voted "Best Cottage Community" by Cottage Living magazine.
Famous people of Forest Hills Gardens: