Forest Hills
Neighborhood Intelligence

Forest Hills is best known for Forest Hills Gardens, a planned community begun in 1909 on land that Margaret Sage bought for the Russell Sage Foundation. Modeled on the English garden-city movement, with Tudor-style houses, curving streets, and a central station plaza, it was one of the country's earliest planned garden suburbs. Further development came in the 1920s and 1930s with the widening of Queens Boulevard. The neighborhood is also closely associated with tennis: the West Side Tennis Club hosted the U.S. National Championships, later the U.S. Open, for most years from 1915 to 1977, and its 1923 stadium still stands.

Station Square, at the center of Forest Hills Gardens, is a landmark plaza surrounded by Tudor Revival buildings. The Church-in-the-Gardens on Ascan Avenue, the Forest Hills Jewish Center, and the West Side Tennis Club, whose stadium now hosts concerts as well as tennis, are among its long-established institutions. Austin Street, the area's main commercial street, is lined with restaurants and shops, and Queens Boulevard carries a corridor of mid-rise and high-rise apartment buildings through the neighborhood.