Representative Crowley: New York: Mesbeth



	Congressman Joseph Crowley Fighting for the People of Maspeth Delivered $100,000 in Federal transportation funding for new signage to keep trucks on the LIE and Grand Avenue and off local roads, increasing safety, limiting congestion, reducing air pollution and improving the quality of life Working with Local elected officials, was able to preserve the Maspeth Keyspan Gas Tanks site as a 6-acre green space and community park, instead of a big box retail store Secured $100,000 for Maspeth Town Hall for the expansion of their after-school programs. These funds will benefit children at PS 229 and possibly allow for this organization to branch out to IS 73 Worked to bring $650,000 in Federal funding or the construction of a sound barrier on the east- and west-bound sides of the Long Island Expressway from 61st to 64th Streets in Maspeth, Queens Brought $100,000 from the EPA to conduct an air quality study for Northwestern Queens, particularly in the area surrounding 69th Street and Grand Avenue in Maspeth, to study the high incidence level of asthma in the community Listening to the people of South Elmhurst, Congressman Crowley supported changing the zip code to reflect their place as members of the Middle Village community Successfully lobbied for $720,000 in Federal funding for the 21st Century Learning Program, an after-school educational program to keep kids off the street and in a safe environment Won passage into law of legislation to both increase benefits and provide a new "9-11 Heroes Medal of Valor" to the Public Safety Officers who lost their lives responding to September 11, including the heroes at Engine 288 and Haz Mat
	Maspeth Maspeth is a neighborhood in west central Queens (1991 pop. 40,000), bounded to the north by the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, to the east by 69th Street, to the south by Metropolitan Avenue, and to the west by Newton Creek and Brooklyn. It is named for the Mespat Indians, who inhabited the headwaters of Newton Creek. The first European settlement in Queens County (1642), it was attacked by the Indians in 1643 and abandoned in 1644. Several roads were laid out during the eighteenth century. De Witt Clinton, a governor of New York State (1817-28), had a summer home on 56th Terrace and 56th Avenue, where he planned the Erie Canal. In 1852 Mount Olivet Cemetary was opened and development escalated: the population grew from 1449 in 1875 to 4300 in 1898. Fertilizer works and lumber yards were built along the creek; inland were a linoleum plant and a rope walks (long, narrow buildings where hemp was spun into rope). The eastern edge of Maspeth abutting Newton Creek remained industrial and commercial, especially along Grand and Maspeth avenues. In the mid 1990s it was mostly Catholic, Polish, Lithuanian, German, Irish, and Italian, with increasing numbers of Koreans, Puerto Ricans, Dominicans, and Greeks. Many residents were sanitation workers, firefighters, truck drivers, factory workers, laborers, and small shopkeepers. The Long Island Expressway and the belt of cemeteries nearby isolated and the northern section of Maspeth from northern and central Queens and kept it suburban; the side streets were lined with one-family detached houses. There is a large amount of industry in the area. Grand Avenue, the main shopping street, provides a route to Brooklyn and Elmhurst. Vincent Seyfried, Encyclopedia of New York City, Edited by Kenneth T. Jackson. New Haven, Yale University Press. 1995.