Rochdale Village (pronounced ) is a housing cooperative and neighborhood in the southeastern corner of the

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

borough A borough is an administrative division in various English-speaking countries. In principle, the term ''borough'' designates a self-governing walled town, although in practice, official use of the term varies widely. History In the Middle A ...

Queens Queens is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Queens County, in the U.S. state of New York. Located on Long Island, it is the largest New York City borough by area. It is bordered by the borough of Brooklyn at the western tip of Long ...

. Located in Community District 12, Rochdale Village is grouped as part of Greater Jamaica, corresponding to the former Town of Jamaica. It is adjacent to four other Queens neighborhoods: St. Albans to the east, South Jamaica to the west, Locust Manor to the north, and

Springfield Gardens Springfield Gardens is a neighborhood in the southeastern area of the New York City borough of Queens, bounded to the north by St. Albans, to the east by Laurelton and Rosedale, to the south by John F. Kennedy International Airport, and to the w ...

to the south across the Belt Parkway. Rochdale is about from the Queens/Nassau border and about north of

John F. Kennedy International Airport John F. Kennedy International Airport (colloquially referred to as JFK Airport, Kennedy Airport, New York-JFK, or simply JFK) is the main international airport serving New York City. The airport is the busiest of the seven airports in the Avia ...

History

Rochdale Village was named after the English town of

Rochdale Rochdale ( ) is a large town in Greater Manchester, England, at the foothills of the South Pennines in the dale on the River Roch, northwest of Oldham and northeast of Manchester. It is the administrative centre of the Metropolitan Borough ...

, Greater Manchester, where the Rochdale Pioneers developed the Rochdale Principles of cooperation. The architect's concept of Rochdale Village was an attractive community covering 122 blocks that would provide the residents with a park-like setting and facilities of suburbia, within the limits of the Urban Jamaica Area. Rochdale Village was designed to be a "city within a city" when it was planned beginning in 1939, in order to boost tourism to the surrounding area also including

, Rosedale, and Laurelton. The property is the former site of Jamaica Race Course, which was the area's only tourist site and was operated by the Metropolitan Jockey Club and its successor, the Greater New York Association (now the

New York Racing Association The New York Racing Association, Inc. (NYRA) is the not-for-profit corporation that operates the three largest Thoroughbred horse racing tracks in the state of New York, United States: Aqueduct Racetrack in South Ozone Park, Queens; Belmont Park i ...

.) When the NYRA decided to renovate Greater Jamaica's other track, Aqueduct Racetrack (in

South Ozone Park South Ozone Park is a neighborhood in the southwestern section of the New York City borough of Queens. It is just north of John F. Kennedy International Airport, between Aqueduct Racetrack to the west and the Van Wyck Expressway to the east. Adja ...

), it also decided to close Jamaica Race Course when the Aqueduct Racetrack's improvements were finished. Jamaica Race Course was shut down in 1959 and demolished. Rochdale Village was developed under the Mitchell-Lama Housing Program to provide affordable housing for low- and middle-income families. The architect, Herman Jessor, was inspired by the Le Corbusier model. Construction soon proceeded at a rapid pace on the new community in Queens. When Rochdale Village opened, it was the largest private cooperative housing complex in the world until

Co-op City Co-op City (short for Cooperative City) is a cooperative housing development located in the northeast section of the borough of the Bronx in New York City. It is bounded by Interstate 95 to the southwest, west, and north and the Hutchinson River ...

in the Bronx was completed in 1971. Rochdale Village was originally between 10 and 20 percent African American and 80 to 90 percent

white White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no hue). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully reflect and scatter all the visible wavelengths of light. White o ...

. This caused controversy before the start of construction, as black people could not participate in Rochdale Village's construction. The Rochdale Village complex was supposed to be the model for mixed-race housing in the U.S., but then became symbolic of the

Civil Rights Movement The civil rights movement was a nonviolent social and political movement and campaign from 1954 to 1968 in the United States to abolish legalized institutional racial segregation, discrimination, and disenfranchisement throughout the Unite ...

, which was ongoing during the complex's construction; for instance, twenty-three protesters were detained for disrupting the construction in 1961, including

William Booth William Booth (10 April 182920 August 1912) was an English Methodist preacher who, along with his wife, Catherine, founded the Salvation Army and became its first " General" (1878–1912). His 1890 book In Darkest England and The Way Out o ...

, the future head of mayor John V. Lindsay's Human Rights Commission. About 10% of the units were given to blacks upon the complex's 1963 completion. As the years passed, more and more African Americans moved to Rochdale. It was between the late 1960s and mid-1970s that most white people moved from the community, owing to the

white flight White flight or white exodus is the sudden or gradual large-scale migration of white people from areas becoming more racially or ethnoculturally diverse. Starting in the 1950s and 1960s, the terms became popular in the United States. They refer ...

brought on by white perceptions of black people as dangerous, fears of lowered property value, and racist real estate practices such a block-busting. Soon, the complex became poorer and unable to provide for some basic utilities throughout the early 1980s, with many apartments remaining empty. However, toward the end of the 20th century, Rochdale Village became 100 percent owner-occupied in order to eliminate rent-stabilized apartments. This was concurrent with the drop in crime citywide. A ''New York Times'' article in 1997 went: "Under new management, Rochdale has become a preferred residence for middle-class black people. There are only nine vacancies." There are about 25,000 residents in Rochdale Village .

Facilities

Rochdale Village, sometimes called the "Jewel of Jamaica", is located on a residential park. It consists of 20 buildings in five circular groups. Each 13 story building has three sections: A, B, and C. Each section in each building has its own mailing address. Rochdale Village has its own branch of the

Queens Public Library The Queens Public Library (QPL), also known as the Queens Borough Public Library and Queens Library (QL), is the public library for the borough of Queens, and one of three public library systems serving New York City. It is one of the largest li ...

system. A 21 megawatt

cogeneration Cogeneration or combined heat and power (CHP) is the use of a heat engine or power station to generate electricity and useful heat at the same time. Cogeneration is a more efficient use of fuel or heat, because otherwise- wasted heat from elec ...

facility generates all the electrical power, heating, air-conditioning, and domestic hot water services for the entire residential development and two shopping malls; the power plant produces its power independently with no connection to any outside utility company. Rochdale Village Department of Public Safety protects the residents, visitors, and property of Rochdale Village. The New York City Police Department's 113th Precinct patrol Rochdale Village and is the primary Policing and investigation agency within the New York City as per the NYC Charter (law), this includes Rochdale Village.

Education

The schools in the Rochdale Village are P.S. 354, P.S. 80, Catherine and Count Basie Junior High School 72, August Martin High School, and CCS Montessori. In 2011, P.S. 30 began being phased out and replaced after years of poor performance; a new school, P.S. 354, opened with kindergarten and first grade, adding a grade per year until P.S. 30 phased out in June 2014.

Transportation

Rochdale Village and the surrounding neighborhoods are served by transit via the Long Island Rail Road's

Atlantic Branch The Atlantic Branch is an electrified rail line owned and operated by the Long Island Rail Road in the U.S. state of New York. It is the only LIRR line with revenue passenger service in the borough of Brooklyn. The line consists of two sectio ...

, which stops right by the complex at the Locust Manor station. Rochdale is also served by

MTA Regional Bus Operations MTA Regional Bus Operations (RBO) is the surface transit division of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA). It was created in 2008 to consolidate all bus operations in New York City operated by the MTA. , MTA Regional Bus Operations ru ...

' Q3, Q5, Q85, Q111, Q113, Q114 and QM21 routes. A New York City Subway extension to the neighborhood was considered in the 1970s and 1980s, but was cut short at Jamaica Center – Parsons/Archer due to financial issues.

References

External links