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Queens

College Point

A German factory town on the East River that now cooks Chilean empanadas and Sichuan lamb.

College Point is a peninsula at the top of Queens with no subway and very little hurry. It takes its name from St. Paul's College, a seminary founded here in the 1830s that failed within a decade; what built the town was Conrad Poppenhusen, a German industrialist whose hard-rubber works drew a whole community of German immigrants in the nineteenth century. His Poppenhusen Institute, built in 1868, opened what is recognized as the country's first free kindergarten and still stands on 14th Road.

Today the neighborhood is a mix of old frame houses, low brick apartment blocks, light industry and strip-mall shopping centers, with newer Chinese, Korean and Latin American families sharing the streets with descendants of the old European ones. The restaurants follow suit — a Chilean bakery and dining room in a shopping center on 14th Avenue, a well-known Sichuan kitchen, pizzerias and delis.

Finish at the water. MacNeil Park, on Poppenhusen Avenue, has a rebuilt shoreline promenade looking across the East River to the Bronx, with planes lowering into LaGuardia overhead. It is one of the quieter sunsets in the borough.

The 1868 Poppenhusen Institute on 14th Road

Chilean empanadas and completos off 14th Avenue

Planes over MacNeil Park's rebuilt shoreline

Frame houses and small factories on a peninsula with no subway

Local notes

Poppenhusen Institute

Built in 1868 with Conrad Poppenhusen's money, the Victorian building housed the area's first library, a courtroom, the sheriff's office and, from 1870, a free kindergarten open to children of any race or creed. It is a New York City landmark and still runs as a community cultural center.

MacNeil Park

Twenty-nine acres of waterfront at Poppenhusen Avenue and College Place, with a rebuilt shoreline walkway, a fishing overlook and a kayak launch. Come for the open view across the East River and the low, steady parade of LaGuardia arrivals.

Chile in a shopping center

La Roja de Todos moved from Corona to a small shopping center on 14th Avenue in 2024, bringing its empanadas de pino, pastel de choclo and Chilean soccer crowds with it. On match days the room fills with red jerseys.

Through the lens

MacNeil Park at golden hour is the shot: the promenade railing, the river, and aircraft low over the water. The Poppenhusen Institute's mansard roof reads best from the corner of 14th Road and 114th Street in morning light.

Editorial draft — core details last reviewed October 13, 2026. Confirm practical details with the official site before you go.

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