On January 25, 2010, Aquinas Honor Society students stand in front of the Depew House, holding photos of President Lincoln, Senator Depew, and Lincoln's Springfield home. Photo courtesy of Carl Ballenas.
Honor students from Immaculate Conception School, a grammar school in Jamaica Estates, Queens, went on a quest for Redder's Pond, the glacial lake that once filled about three acres in the neighborhood. The pond was drained to make room for the Grand Central Parkway in the early 1930s. The students learned that the pond was at the intersection of Homelawn Street, Utopia Parkway, and the Grand Central (just southeast of the St. John's campus).
The kids' teacher, Queens historian Carl Ballenas, said that he showed the students last week's blog about the Queens photos from 1924, and they were able to see Redder's Pond.
This historical research isn't just a hobby or class project. These kids wrote a book! And it's being published! Impressive stuff.
Images of America: Jamaica Estates (Arcadia Publishing), written by Ballenas and the students, will be released on March 8, 2010. There'll be a book signing at the Fresh Meadows Barnes & Noble on Union Turnpike on March 21.
One of the team's latest discoveries: the Depew House, built for U.S. Senator Chauncey Depew in the early 1900s. It's the boarded-up house you see on the corner of Midland Parkway when you're driving on the Grand Central service road.
Depew, who knew and admired Abraham Lincoln, made his house a replica of Lincoln's Springfield, Illinois, home. Twelve-year-old Tahina Felisca, one of the student authors, said, "I have passed this house almost every day and now I have discovered that it has a connection to Abraham Lincoln, who did so much for our country."
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