63rd Dr and Saunders St
(ca. 1940)

What's now 63rd Drive was previously known as Remsen Lane, after Col. Jeromus Remsen, who had gained notoriety during the Revolution at the Battle of Long Island. The street was renamed in 1913, when the borough largely changed over to a numbered system.

When Rego Park was originally developed in 1923, 63rd Drive was planned to be a residential street, with a shopping district on Eliot
Avenue and Queens Boulevard. In 1942, however, it was announced that the Queens Midtown Highway, later named the Long Island Expressway, would pass through the commercial district and the stores would be demolished.

Bronx native, Robert E. Hill, saw this as an opportunity to develop a new strip, and in 1947 purchased the houses on 63rd Drive to build commercial storefronts. These Art Deco limestone structures, which once housed F.W. Woolworth and McCrory's as well as family businesses, are some of the last remaining examples of the shops that lined 63rd Drive during the second half of the 20th-century. Despite the economic struggles and changes over time, the strip remains as one of the neighborhood's main commercial corridors, and an important part community life.