Established by Eugene R. Durkee in 1851, the Durkee Company is a manufacturer of spices, condiments and grocers’ specialties, which is still in business today. They relocated from Hudson Square in Manhattan to Elmhurst in 1917, when they built this four-story industrial structure as their new mustard and spice factory. News of this move was met with opposition from the community, who wanted to preserve the residential use of the neighborhood. As a way to mitigate this negative reception, when announcing the purchase of the property from the Cord Meyer Company, Durkee stated that the factory would be surrounded by lawns and flower beds, and it would be a boon to the community. Durkee became the largest factory and employer in Elmhurst with over 300 employees, mostly women.

E.R. Durkee died in December of 1926, leaving everything to his daughters. The Company was sold in 1986 and was subsequently absorbed into a larger-food processing conglomerate. In 2007, the building was renovated and became the Elmhurst Educational Campus, which hosts three separate high schools: The Pan American International High School, the Civic Leadership Academy and Voyages Preparatory High School.

In 1828, one year after the abolition of slavery in New York State, newly freed African Americans formed a religious community and congregation of their own. The United African Society, later known as the African Methodist Episcopal Church, established a church and burial ground at this site.

St. Marks A.M.E Church started as a small church surrounded by a cemetery which would later be replaced by a new building thanks to the efforts made by the congregation and contributions from other local churches. Construction began in 1908, but only the shell of the building would be completed due to a lack of funds.

In 1911, the Queens Building Department deemed it unsafe and ordered posts to be set up in the basement to hold up the weight of the floor. This prompted renewed efforts to raise money, and by the end of the year, the church was completed and dedicated. Little is known about what happened to this building, but in 1928 the congregation moved to a new location in North Corona and attempted to move their deceased, but the City of New York declined the request and only twenty remains were successfully transferred.

While there are no physical markers that remain of this burial ground, documentation has determined that there are 310 interments, the majority of which remain beneath the earth today. Nearly forgotten, vast public interest of this site was awakened after Martha Peterson was found in an iron coffin in 2011. Ms. Peterson’s life — and death — was the subject of a special television program that aired on PBS in 2018.

Though small plot of land has survived as a touchstone to one of the earliest freed African American communities in the region and its history is nearly as old as freed African American society in New York State itself.

Before the Civil War, there was a Baptist Chapel at Queens Boulevard, but the congregation eventually disbanded. In 1900, a series of cottage prayer meetings resulted in the organization of a new congregation, who started a fundraising campaign to build a church after Cord Meyer donated a plot of land. Since the site was located in the midst of the new upper- class Elmhurst community, the congregation was anxious to build a structure that would be an ornament and an asset to the neighborhood.

Designed by the church architect A. F. Leicht, the plans called for a stone building with an octagonal interior and a concave ceiling finished in hardwoods with a seating capacity of 500. The cornerstone was laid on July 1902 and the congregation moved into the building in 1903. The formal dedication ceremony took place in the summer of that same year.