Long Island City
Neighborhood Intelligence

Long Island City sits on the Queens waterfront directly across the East River from Midtown Manhattan. It was incorporated as its own city in 1870 and grew as a center of factories, bakeries, and rail and ferry transportation. In 2001 the waterfront was rezoned from an industrial area to a residential one, and developments such as Hunters Point South followed. The official area covered here, NYC Planning's Long Island City-Hunters Point, runs from Queens Plaza and the Queensboro Bridge south to Newtown Creek and from the East River east toward Sunnyside.

Gantry Plaza State Park occupies former dock and rail-transfer land on the river, with its restored gantries as the centerpiece. The Pepsi-Cola sign beside it is a designated New York City landmark, and One Court Square, formerly the Citicorp Building, long stood as the tallest building in Queens. MoMA PS1, an affiliate of the Museum of Modern Art, occupies a former Romanesque Revival public school building. The SculptureCenter, the former Silvercup bakery that is now Silvercup Studios, and the Hunters Point Library are among the other cultural and creative sites.