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The middle-class neighborhood of Jamaica is located near the heart of the borough of Queens in New York City. It was once named Rustdorp (meaning “rest-town”) but the name Jamaica came from the word “Yameco,” the name used by the native American tribes to call the area due to the abundance of beaver (yamecah) in its swamps and streams. Then the Dutch came and gave all the places Dutch names and replaced the liquid “y” sound with the Dutch spelling of “j”. When the English took over, the spelling was retained but was slowly replaced with the sound of the hard “j” and eventually became “Jamaica”.

Local Area Information

Jamaica was once the seat of Queens County and was the first village to be incorporated. When Queens became part of the City of New York, Jamaica regained its role as county seat and, as a result, became the location of many government buildings. Jamaica’s rich history is reflected by the many sites in the area that are listed on the National Register of Historic Places, one of them being the US Post Office-Jamaica Main which was the only post office before 1803 in today’s boroughs of Queens and Brooklyn. The list also includes, among others, the 200-year old King Manor (also known as the Rufus King House), the Sidewalk Clock at 161-11 Jamaica Avenue and the Trans World Airlines Flight Center.

Jamaica has a population of diverse ethnic backgrounds which includes African-Americans, Hispanics, and Asians, with the first group mostly populating South Jamaica. South Jamaica had the third largest African-American neighborhood in New York City by the early 1960s and today has the largest African-American population in the borough of Queens. Various food and grocery establishments that can be seen around different parts of Jamaica serve the different communities and cultures they represent including Caribbeans, Bangladeshis, Sri Lankans, Filipinos, Guyanese, and Trinidadians and Tobagonians. In the east from 167th Street to 171st Street are many East Indian shops that many refer to the area as another “Little South Asia”.

Jamaica is largely comprised of commercial and retail areas though there are also residential areas and complexes such as Rochdale Village, the second largest housing cooperative in the U.S., as well as Baisley Park Houses and Cedar Manor Homes. It has been reported that Jamaica’s real-estate prices are the fastest rising out of all localities in New York City, according to then StreetEasy (known today as Zillow). Jamaica has seen a lot of economic development and is now home to many enterprises including One Jamaica Center, a mixed-use commercial complex, Home Depot, as well as many big and well known banks such as Bank of America, Sterling National Bank and Chase Bank. It is also the site of the JFK International Airport and perhaps one of the most prominent part of the neighborhood’s development was the expansion of the LIRR’s Jamaica Station with the new transfer to the AirTrain JFK. The expansion has stimulated the development of several hotels around the area particularly on Sutphin Boulevard, which has been described as “the next tourist hot spot” and is Jamaica’s second busiest thoroughfare next to Jamaica Avenue. Jamaica is also home to several colleges and universities, one of which is CUNY’s York College, as well as many parks and recreation areas such as Baisley Pond Park, Captain Tilly Park, Detective Keith L. Williams Park and St. Albans Park.