NYC Arts: The Complete Guide to Art and Culture

The late 18th-century Kingsland Homestead stands in a small park in Flushing, in the shade of the landmark Weeping Beech, planted in 1847. Located steps away from the 17th-century Bowne House, where Quakers were first permitted to meet in New Amsterdam, Kingsland is the headquarters of the Queens Historical Society. Charles Doughty, who built the house about 1785, was the son of Benjamin Doughty, a wealthy Quaker who purchased land on the old turnpike in Flushing.

The name "Kingsland" derives from Doughty's son-in-law, British sea captain Joseph King, who bought the home in 1801. The two-and-a-half story homestead has a gambrel roof, a crescent-shaped window in a side gable, and a Dutch-style front door split across the center. There is also an unusually wide hall and a largely intact original chimney. Captain King overlaid the original exterior with shingles on all but the west side of the house in 1805. The first floor is used for exhibits depicting Queens history, drawing on the collection of the Queens Historical Society, which owns Kingsland, and community resources. A second floor parlor is decorated as if it belonged to a middle-class Victorian family. Personal mementos such as lacework, notebooks, and eyeglasses belonging to the Doughty and King families and later residents are displayed from time to time. In 1923 a proposed subway extension threatened to destroy the house, and it was moved to the site of a nearby stable that Captain King had built more than a century before.

When the house was endangered by new construction in 1968, the three-year-old Kingsland Preservation Committee had it transferred to its present location on property that once belonged to Samuel Parsons, a Flushing nurseryman who brought a shoot of the Weeping Beech over from Belgium. The move secured the fate of a house typical of its time but rare today.

Programs for Seniors
Tours and other programs are modified to meet seniors' needs. Guides, teachers, aids and caretakers are always free with their group. Slide lectures on community histories are delivered to senior centers.

• Landmark Status: National Register of Historic Places, New York City Landmark
• Directions: Subway: 7 to Flushing - Main Street. Walk two blocks east on Roosevelt Avenue to Bowne Street. Turn left, continue walking until Margaret Carman Green Park. Walk through the park. The homestead is the first house on the left hand side.
  Bus: Q13, 28 to Parsons & Northern Boulevards. Q12, 14, 15, 16, 17, 26, 27, 28, 44, 48, 65, 66, to Main Street, Flushing, and follow the above subway directions.
  Car: Take the Long Island Expressway from the Queens Midtown Tunnel to the Van Wyck Expressway. Get on the Van Wyck going north. Exit the Van Wyck at the Northern Boulevard East exit. Travel along Northern Boulevard past Main Street for three traffic lights until Parsons Boulevard. Turn right on Parsons Boulevard and then right on 37th Avenue. The Kingsland Homestead is at the right at the end of the cul-de-sac.

• Disability Access: Wheelchair accessible