You are reading

Street Corner in Woodside to be Co-Named “Little Manila Avenue” in Celebration of Filipino Community

Filipino residents advocating for a Little Manila street sign at 70th Street and Roosevelt Avenue in Woodside in summer 2020 (Photo: ourlittlemanila.nyc)

Dec. 14, 2021 By Allie Griffin and Christian Murray

A street corner in Woodside is going to be co-named “Little Manila Avenue” as an ode to the Filipino community in the neighborhood.

The NYC Council Parks and Recreation committee voted 15-0 Tuesday in favor of co-naming the southwest corner of Roosevelt Avenue and 70th Street “Little Manila Avenue” through legislation sponsored by Council Member Jimmy Van Bramer.

The full Council will vote on the co-naming Wednesday and it’s almost certain to pass.

The vote comes about 18 months after residents launched a petition to erect a street sign reading “Little Manila Avenue” at the 70th Street intersection. The petition garnered more than 3,000 signatures.

A stretch of Roosevelt Avenue by the 69th Street subway station is known to many as “Little Manila” for its Filipino restaurants and stores. Many Filipino Americans have called that section of Woodside home for decades.

The Filipino community started migrating to the area in the 1970s following the passage of the Immigration and Nationality Act in 1965 — legislation that eased the immigration restrictions placed on people from outside Western Europe.

Many immigrated to Queens after being recruited to work in New York hospitals due to a nursing shortage at the time. By the 1990s, 72 percent of Filipino immigrants in New York were registered nurses, according to figures released by the city council.

Several were recruited to work at Elmhurst Hospital and settled in surrounding neighborhoods like Woodside — where a Filipino community has since flourished.

During the last census, about 86,000 Filipinos and Filipino Americans were estimated to be residing in New York City with about 54 percent living in the borough of Queens.

Residents began advocating for a street sign soon after a mural went up in June 2020 on the corner of 69th Street and Roosevelt Avenue that pays tribute to the Filipino healthcare workers who risked — and in some cases, gave — their lives during the peak of the coronavirus pandemic.

Unveiling the new mural in Woodside’s Little Manila neighborhood in 2020 (Little Manila Queens Bayanihan Arts)

The mural reads “Mabuhay,” a Philippine expression that has several meanings, including “cheers”, “welcome” and “may you live.”

Van Bramer said he started working on the legislation calling for the co-naming shortly after attending a ceremony where the mural was unveiled.

“People were talking about renaming the area Little Manila and I wanted it done,” he said. “I wanted to honor the Filipino and Filipino American community who are an important part of the Woodside community.”

According to his office, there are no official records of a “Little Manila” elsewhere in the city. Therefore, the street co-naming, he said, would bring visibility to the contributions the Filipino community has made to Woodside and the city as a whole.

“I wanted to make sure that this became law while I was a council member,” Van Bramer said, who will leave office at the end of the month due to term limits.

email the author: [email protected]
No comments yet

Leave a Comment
Reply to this Comment

All comments are subject to moderation before being posted.

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Recent News

Advocates pen letter blasting Mayor Adams’ legal motion to suspend right-to-shelter

Homeless advocates penned a letter to a Manhattan Supreme Court judge opposing Mayor Eric Adams’ recent legal motion calling for the suspension of the city’s decades-old right-to-shelter law amid the ongoing migrant influx.

The letter, sent last Thursday and released Tuesday, comes in response to Adams last week filing a court motion to exempt the city from its legal mandate — established by the 1984 Callahan v. Carey consent decree — to provide shelter to single adults and adult couples when it “lacks the resources and capacity” to do so. The mayor and top administration officials say they’re not seeking to abolish the right-to-shelter, but rather “clarity” from the court that would give them more “flexibility” in finding suitable housing for tens of thousands of migrants.

Rockaway’s piping plovers among endangered species commemorated on U.S. Postal Service stamps

A day before the city reopened nearly 70 blocks of public beaches along the Rockaway peninsula for the Memorial Day weekend, the U.S. Postal Service and National Park Service hosted a special event at the Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge in Broad Channel to honor the piping plover, an endangered shorebird featured on new stamps.

In attendance were members of the NYC Plover Project, a nonprofit with more than 250 volunteers, who have been on the beaches since March preparing for the summer swim season, who celebrated the newly released stamp sheet commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Endangered Species Act.

Bayside High School hosts annual Social Entrepreneur Trade Fair

Bayside High School hosted its annual Social Entrepreneur Trade Fair Friday. Students from the Career and Technical Education Humanities and Nonprofit Management program each pitched their socially responsible products to students, staff and others in attendance.

Each of the 11th grade students in the program have been taking a college credit course from Farmingdale State College called Social Entrepreneur. The students were divided into 17 groups of five and tasked with coming up with innovative ideas to create businesses while also being socially responsible. The Social Entrepreneur Trade Fair grants them with the opportunity to work on pitching their products to potential customers.

Annual Memorial Day ceremony held at Korean War memorial in Kissena Park

On Friday, May 26, the second annual Memorial Day Ceremony in Kissena Park brought live music, local dignitaries, veterans groups, a presentation of the Colors by members of the Francis Lewis High School JROTC, a flower-laying ceremony and more to the Flushing community.

Those in attendance included Councilwoman Sandra Ung, Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz, state Senator John Liu, veterans groups, local students, Boy Scout Troop 253 and others.

Little Neck-Douglaston Memorial Day Parade honors fallen heroes

Rain or shine, the Little Neck-Douglaston Memorial Day Parade, touted as the largest Memorial Day parade in the United States, has been a staple of the quaint Queens neighborhoods since 1927. Thousands lined the parade route under clear blue sky along Northern Boulevard from Jayson Avenue in Great Neck to 245th Street in Douglaston on May 29 to honor the brave men and women who answered their call to service and made the ultimate sacrifice while defending their country.

Many onlookers sporting patriotic attire waved Old Glory and cheered on the parade of military vehicles, veteran and military groups and marching bands led by Grand Marshal Vice Admiral Joanna M Nunan, the first female commander of the United States Merchant Marine Academy. This year’s parade marshals were retired Master Sergeant Lawrence Badia and Vietnam veteran Richard Weinberg.