Landmarks Preservation Commission November 24, 1981, Designation Listl50 LP-1132 FORMER J. KURTZ & SONS STORE BUILDING, 162-24 Jamaica Avenue, Borough of Queens. Built 1931; architects Allmendinger & Schlender£. Landmark Site: Borough of Queens Tax Map Block 10102, Lot 10. On May 13, 1980, the Landmarks Preservation Commission held a public hearing on the proposed designation as a Landmark of the Former J. Kurtz & Sons Store Building and the proposed designation of the related Landmark Site (Item No. 4). The hearing has been duly advertised in accordance with the provisions of law. One witness spoke in favor of designation. There were no speakers in opposition to designation. One letter was received in favor of designation. DESCRIPTION AND ANALYSIS The Kurtz Store, a striking commercial building in the heart of downtown Jamaica, is a rare manifestation of the Art Deco style in the Borough of Queens. Its ornamentation is typical of that period of architecture prevalent in the 1920s and early 1930s, which looked to the future and to the machine with expectation and optimism. Its compact form, accented by modern materials and skyscraper imagery, enhances this bustling area of the city The building was erected in 1931 as a retail store for the furniture chain of J. Kurtz & Sons. This company had been founded in 1870 by Jacob Kurtz and had three other stores by that time, including the original one on State Street in Brooklyn. The Jamaica store was used continuously by the Kurtz firm until 1978, at which time it was sold to other retailers. The selling floors have recently been divided to several tenants but the exterior remains intact. accom~odate When the Kurtz company decided to expand its retail operations to Jamaica, the area was an important commercial center for Queens and for much of Long Island. Its central location and well-developed transportation systems had made it the hub of a wide area. Jamaica had always been a crossroads for Long Island, dating back to the time when Jamaica Avenue was an Indian trail. The first railroad line arrived here in 1834, built by the Brooklyn & Jamaica Railroad Company. In 1850 Jamaica Avenue, then called Fulton Street, became a plank road and connected the area to the Brooklyn ferries. Horsecar lines were begun in 1866 and electrified in 1886. The Long Island Railroad station was completed in 1913 with the Jamaica Elevated trains arriving five years later. Jamaica started as a sleepy Dutch village of assorted, freestanding structures, loosely grouped along main streets, when the town was granted a patent from Peter Stuyvesant in 1656. The English took over in 1664, changing the town's name from the Dutch "Rusdorp" to a variation on the Canarsie Indian word for beaver, "jamecos." One hundred years later, the community had become a trading post where farmers from outlying areas brought their produce. The nineteenth century saw· the development of Jamaica as a resort, attracting wealthy urban residents who wanted to escape the numerous summer plagues of the city. The permanent population of Jamaica also increased steadily in the early nineteenth century and brought with it the normal proliferation of new buildings.

-2- The earliest recorded map of the land where the Kurtz Store is located, dated 1836, shows that it was owned by Henry Wilkes. Another map, compiled ten years later shows the Wilkes land subdivided, but neither shows any structures on this lot. On the 1873 Beers Map, a Methodist Episcopal Church is located here, but the building was no longer extant by 1895.1 From at least that date until the Kurtz company erected its building, this lot held a two-story commerical structure which, in 1929, housed eleven different tenants. By this time Jamaica contained a thriving business district and the furniture company sought to take advantage of this. The Kurtz family requested that the architects create a building which would be thoroughly modern and arrest the eye of those passing by on

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