Homestead Hotel
This photograph from 1940 shows what the Homestead Hotel and the area around it would have looked like when it was listed in the Green Book.
This 1960s newspaper posting shows the Homestead Hotel as the meeting place for the National Organization for Mentally Ill Children.
This 1962 newspaper clip shows the Homestead Hotel hosting a conference sponsored by Reform Demcratic Clubs.
This newspaper clipping from 1967 gives details about Goldie Finkelstein's death as well as her involvement with horse racing.
Known Name(s)
Homestead Hotel
Address
82-45 Grrenfall St. Queens, NY (1963, 1964, 1966)82-45 Grenfell St. Kew Gardens, NY
Establishment Type(s)
Hotel
Physical Status
Extant
Description
Built in 1928, the Homestead Hotel’s Green Book address of 82-45 Grrenfall St. Queens, NY is incorrect, and today is recognized as 82-45 Grenfell St. Kew Gardens, NY. The building is 45,300 square feet and four floors in height. The building is rectangular with a flat roof and has a one-story roughly triangular extension to the east side of the main building facing Audley Street. Made of brick, the building's main entrance faces southwest on Grenfell Street. Atop the glazed double doors is a transom with muntins forming a half-ellipse. A pendant light hangs from a portico two floors in height at the front entrance. This porch is supported by four Corinthian columns.
It is unclear from photos how many windows stretch across each of the building’s floors because of the trees and brushes along the front and sides of the building. The back side of the building, facing Kew Garden train station and Audley Street gives the best indication of the amount and style of windows across the rest of the building. The ground-floor windows are a combination of one over one and six over six replacement windows while floors two through four all have double hung six over six replacement windows. The ground, first, and second floor windows all have either brick or concrete lintels above them. Keystones are featured prominently. Between the third and fourth floors there is a concrete cornice with modillion blocks.
In 1959, the Long Island Star Journal published an advertisement for the hotel saying “air conditioned… Perfect atmosphere for a wedding reception and all social functions. Three private rooms available. Luncheon, Dinner Wednesday Night: Scotty and Doris, musical duo. Dancing Friday and Saturday, cocktail party Sunday.”
Today, this building is an assisted living care facility for the elderly called The New Homestead Home.
Detailed History
During the years mentioned in the Green Book, the Homestead Hotel was a hub for weddings, ceremonies, and parties as well as political and community events. The 1950 Census for the Homestead Hotel shows a list of guests, all of whom were white Americans or international visitors. Despite this, the hotel functioned as a hub for progressive community meetings. In 1960, the Long Island Star Journal stated the Homestead Hotel would host a meeting for the Queens Chapter of the Mentally Ill Children; in 1962, the Bayside Times stated that the Homestead Hotel would host a conference on transportation and education sponsored by the Queens Reform Democratic Clubs; the Long Island Star Journal in 1968 mentioned a community conference about controversial issues like fluoridation of community water and automation.
The Homestead Hotel was owned by members of the Finkelstein family. Although they owned the building for many years, it is unclear what the family’s involvement was in the day-to-day operations of the hotel. During 1964, a man named Morton Hollander is mentioned as being the owner of the Homestead Hotel, but this reporting is not entirely accurate based on the property’s 1973 deed.
According to the 82-45 Grenfell Street property deed from 1973, Milton Lippman, Milton Finkelstein, Walter Finkelstein, and Harriette Gross sold the hotel to Abgeol Properties incorporated.
Within this new deed is a reference to a lease made in 1944 by Goldie Finkelstein, Maye Lippman, and Milton Lippman. This 1944 agreement leased the property to a company called Cien Corporation. The lease was later transferred to Homestead Hotel Management Corporation. Additional documents related to this lease show an extension in 1962, an assignment from 1964, and a memo of lease dated 1965.
Goldie Finkelstein was born in Russia but lived most of her life in New York City between both Queens and Kings County with her husband Samual and their three children. According to compiled Census data from 1930, 40, and 50, Samual Finkelstein began as a dress and garment manufacturer. By 1950, his occupation changed to hotel operator and his industry was real estate. His children followed in his footsteps.
Milton Finkelstein was the president of Robiette Realty Corporation Incorporated and was also in the co-partnership firm Hotel Whitman Company with his siblings Walter and Harriette. The siblings seemed to have owned the Homestead Hotel after their mother Goldie Finkelstein passed away, as well as a property at 88-66 161st Street, Jamaica.
In 1967, a newspaper article published in the Long Island City New York Star Journal stated that Goldie Finkelstein had passed away from “failing health.” Prior to her death, she had control of a “modest racing establishment after the death of her husband, Sam.” It seems unlikely that the Homestead Hotel was the establishment in question. Goldie did have an interest in horse racing, with the Binghamton New York newspaper mentioning a horse by the name of “Whit’s Pride” that was the colt of Goldie Finkelstein, so she may have invested in other properties.
