Commercial History and Notable Buildings
Long Island City was once home to many factories and bakeries, some of which are finding new uses. The former Silvercup bakery is now home to Silvercup Studios, which produced notable works such as HBO's Sex and the City. The Silvercup sign is visible from the IRT Flushing Line trains going into and out of Queensboro Plaza. The former Sunshine Bakery is now one of the buildings which houses LaGuardia Community College. Other buildings on the campus originally served as the location of the Ford Instrument Company, which was at one time a major producer of precision machines and devices. Artist Isamu Noguchi converted a photo-engraving plant into a workshop; the site is now the museum, a collection dedicated to his work.
High-rise housing is being built on a former Pepsi-Cola site on the East river. From June 2002 to September 2004, the former Swingline Staplers plant was the temporary headquarters of the Museum of Modern Art. Other former factories in Long Island City include Fisher Electronics and Chiclets Gum. Long Island City's turn-of-the-century district of residential towers, called Queens West, is located along the East River, just north of the main LIRR Long Island City Station. Redevelopment in Queens West reflects the intent to have the area as a major residential area in New York City, with its high-rise residences very close to public transportation, making it convenient for commuters to travel to Manhattan by ferry or subway. The first tower, the 42-floor Citylights, opened in 1998 with an elementary school at the base. Others have been completed since then and more are being planned or under construction.
Today, the most prominent structure, other than Queensboro Bridge, is the community's green skyscraper, the 658-foot (201 m) Citicorp Building built in 1989 on Courthouse Square. It is the tallest building on Long Island and in any of the New York City boroughs outside Manhattan. Socioeconomic diversity is very visible in Long Island City; the Queensbridge Houses are composed of over three thousand units, making it the largest public housing complex in North America.
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“The American who has been confined, in his own country, to the sight of buildings designed after foreign models, is surprised on entering York Minster or St. Peter’s at Rome, by the feeling that these structures are imitations also,—faint copies of an invisible archetype.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)