Queens
Corona
Ecuadorian and Mexican street food on Roosevelt Avenue, and lemon ice in Old Corona.
Corona was Italian for most of the twentieth century, and Louis Armstrong chose to live here, in a modest brick house on 107th Street, at the height of his fame. Today it is one of the great Latin American neighborhoods in the country: Ecuadorian, Mexican, Dominican, Colombian, and Central American, with Roosevelt Avenue under the 7 train as its main street.
Roosevelt Avenue is a long open-air kitchen. Carts and storefronts sell tamales and champurrado in the morning, Ecuadorian hornado and encebollado at lunch, and tacos al pastor well into the night. Corona Plaza, the pedestrian square at 103rd Street, has long been the gathering point for vendors, and after a contentious crackdown in 2023 it now runs as a formal, permitted street market.
Walk south toward 108th Street and the older Corona appears: two-family houses, an Italian deli or two, and a bocce court in the little park the neighborhood calls Spaghetti Park. Across the street, an ice stand has been scooping lemon ice since 1944. Flushing Meadows Corona Park, with the Unisphere and the Queens Museum, waits at the neighborhood's edge for the walk afterward.
Tamale carts and taco griddles along Roosevelt Avenue
A permitted street market on Corona Plaza
Bocce and lemon ice in Old Corona
Louis Armstrong's brick house on a quiet residential block
Local notes
The Lemon Ice King of Corona
Nicola Benfaremo started selling Italian ice out of a garage on 108th Street in 1944, and the shop at 52-02 108th Street has been a summer pilgrimage ever since. Dozens of flavors, but lemon — chunky with real fruit — is the reason for the name.
Corona Plaza
The pedestrian plaza at Roosevelt Avenue and 103rd Street, for years one of the city's largest informal street-food markets. After a 2023 shutdown, it reopened as a permitted market run with the Corona Plaza Vendors Association, with licensed food carts and rotating vendor tents. The tamales and champurrado remain the morning order.
Louis Armstrong House Museum
Armstrong and his wife Lucille lived in this house on 107th Street from 1943 until his death in 1971, choosing working-class Corona over anywhere else. The rooms are preserved as they left them, and a center across the street holds the archive. A gentle counterweight to an afternoon of eating.
Through the lens
Roosevelt Avenue rewards early mornings, when vendors set up under the tracks and steam rises from the carts. Corona Plaza is at its liveliest on weekend afternoons; ask vendors before close portraits. Old Corona's bocce court and lemon ice line are best on a summer evening.
Editorial draft — core details last reviewed October 13, 2026. Confirm practical details with the official site before you go.