The Enduring Legacy of Conrad Poppenhusen Institute and BJs Wholesale Club in College Point

College Point, a neighborhood in Queens, New York City, boasts a rich history and a vibrant present. This article explores the historical significance of the Conrad Poppenhusen Institute and the contemporary presence of BJ's Wholesale Club, highlighting their respective contributions to the community.

Conrad Poppenhusen Institute: A Beacon of Self-Improvement

The Conrad Poppenhusen Institute stands as a testament to the vision of German immigrant Conrad Poppenhusen. He financed the construction of this five-story Victorian-style building as a place where people, irrespective of their race, creed, or religion, could come for self-improvement.

A Multifaceted Institution

Throughout its history, the Institute served as the first home of the College Point Savings Bank and the first library in the neighborhood. It also hosted German singing societies and the First Reformed Church. The Institute even housed the first free kindergarten, established on July 1, 1870.

Preservation Efforts

In 2007, a $200,000 loan and a $10,000 grant were provided to upgrade the building’s fire protection system, ensuring the preservation of this historical landmark.

BJ's Wholesale Club: A Community Partner

BJ's Wholesale Club has established a presence in College Point, contributing to the local economy and community initiatives.

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Location and Expansion

BJ's Wholesale Club occupies a 121,000 square-foot space at Sky View Center, a retail facility located at College Point Boulevard and Roosevelt Avenue in Flushing. The store opened in November of 2009, complementing the diverse retail mix at the center, which includes Target, Best Buy, Marshall’s, Staples, and Bed, Bath and Beyond.

Commitment to Families

BJ’s Wholesale Club is focused on serving its members and helping families meet their essential needs by providing access to nutritious food and supporting education and health and wellness.

Charitable Contributions

Through August, BJ’s Charitable Foundation will generously match all gifts up to $250,000. Bob Eddy, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, BJ’s Wholesale Club, stated, “BJ’s Wholesale Club has been committed to taking care of the families who depend on us for 40 years.”

Fighting Food Insecurity

The company has partnered with Feeding America for more than 15 years, providing over 130 million meals to families in communities where it operates. Nineteen BJ’s clubs in Eastern Massachusetts also participate in GBFB’s retail donation food rescue program by donating unsold fresh food to more than 30 different GBFB partner agencies as part of the BJ’s Feeding Communities program.

According to GBFB’s recently released report called Food Equity and Access in Massachusetts, as many as 1 in 3 children in Massachusetts experienced food insecurity at some point in 2023. Summer is a particularly difficult time for families facing hunger, as children, teens, and even college students are not receiving the regular free school meals they get when school is in session.

Catherine D’Amato, president and CEO of GBFB, said, “We are incredibly grateful for BJ’s support and generosity in our shared mission to mitigate food insecurity. Their dedication and generosity empowers us to make a tangible difference in the lives of so many in need and will be instrumental in supporting our hunger-relief efforts, with a particular focus on providing nourishment to vulnerable children, students, and families facing significant challenges."

The Greater Boston Food Bank (GBFB) is the largest hunger-relief organization in New England and one of the largest food banks in the country. For nearly half a century, GBFB has fueled Eastern Massachusetts’ hunger-relief system, putting nearly 90 million healthy meals on tables across the region each year. Over 600 community-based pantries and other local partners in 190 cities and towns depend on GBFB to provide access to healthy food for 600,000 people every month. GBFB is committed to the belief that access to healthy food is a human right regardless of an individual’s circumstances. Through policy, partnerships, and providing free, nutritious, and culturally responsive food, GBFB is committed to addressing the root causes of food insecurity while promoting racial, gender and economic equity in food access.

BJ’s Wholesale Club (NYSE: BJ) is a leading operator of membership warehouse clubs focused on delivering significant value to its members and serving a shared purpose: “We take care of the families who depend on us.” The company provides a wide assortment of fresh foods, produce, a full-service deli, fresh bakery, household essentials and gas. In addition, BJ’s offers the latest technology, home decor, small appliances, apparel, seasonal items and more to deliver unbeatable value to smart-saving families. Headquartered in Marlborough, Massachusetts, the company pioneered the warehouse club model in New England in 1984 and operates 244 clubs and 176 BJ’s Gas® locations in 20 states.

The Transformation of Mill Creek and College Point Corporate Park

The landscape of College Point has undergone significant changes over the years, particularly concerning Mill Creek and the development of College Point Corporate Park.

Mill Creek: From Meadow to Canal

The flooded meadow that once separated College Point from Flushing feeds the northernmost tributary of Flushing Creek, feeding into it just a few yards shy of where it widens into Flushing Bay. The view from College Point Boulevard shows Mill Creek flowing into Flushing Creek at low tide. The 1904 E. Belcher-Hyde atlas shows Mill Creek meandering across an undeveloped expanse between College Point from Flushing.

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Limited Access and Development

Only four roads: 14th Avenue, 20th Avenue, Linden Place, and College Point Boulevard, connect the College Point peninsula to the rest of Queens. Looking at the 1950s topographical map from the Parks Commissioner’s office, we see College Point as a separate entity on account of Mill Creek. The void contained a private airport, a short-lived military property, and an incinerator.

Flushing Airport's History

The triangular parcel bound by Linden Place, 20th Avenue and Whitestone Expressway would be used as Flushing Airport from 1927 through 1984. Today most of it is again a freshwater wetland with parks and office buildings along its periphery. The airport opened in 1927 as Speed’s Airport, named for its founder Anthony “Speed” Hanzlick, who ran Speed’s Flying Service. Throughout its history, the airport was troubled by its proximity to LaGuardia Airport, neighborhood opposition relating to noise and accidents, and flooding on its runways. Its clientele were private airplanes and blimps. Hanzlick operated the airport until his death in 1974, when his wife Wilhemina succeeded him. The construction of an electric plant at the airport’s northwestern corner forced the closure of Runway 4-22, leaving only one landing strip. Whenever northwest or southwest winds exceeded 35 miles per hour, the airport would close. The site Abandoned& Little-Known Airfields has a detailed history of Flushing Airport, including some of its fatal accidents. Looking at the airport site from Linden Place, nothing remains of it. The hangar ruins were removed by 2008, and nature has reclaimed the property. The property is not a park nor an official nature preserve. It has seen many failed plans such as a heliport, blimp port, and wholesale warehouse depot. A portion of the wetland used for decades as a little league sports field atop a landfill made of hazardous materials was cleaned up by the city and designated as College Point Fields. On the eastern edge of the airport site, a postal distribution facility and the Richard Olcott and James S. Polshek-designed New York Times printing plant frame the superblock.

College Point Corporate Park

Where College Point Boulevard crosses Mill Creek is a concrete sign welcoming travelers to College Point Corporate Park. Its history goes back to 1960, when James Felt, chairman of the City Planning Commission, proposed it as an industrial district. The goal was to reduce the flight of manufacturers from the city and generate tax income from the undeveloped land.

Across College Point Boulevard from the mouth of Mill Creek is a gray and blue self storage warehouse, one of many popping up around the city. This Storage Quarters facility at 31-40 Whitestone Expressway is the former trash incinerator, which operated until May 20, 1969, spewing 3.5 tons of dirt into the air each day, to the dismay of College Point residents. Its smokestack still stands. Next to it is Crystal Window & Door Systems, founded in 1990 by local Taiwanese immigrant Thomas Chen. The factory is a success story and an example of a new industry built by a new resident.

The designation of the industrial park failed to slow the larger industrial decline in the city and in the 1980s, the space was renamed College Point Corporate Park. At the time, the city’s Economic Development Corporation straightened a section of Mill Creek between 28th and 31st Avenues into a canal. Following its completion, most of the current buildings on site were completed.

Reclaiming Nature and New Developments

On the northeast corner of Linden Place and 28th Avenue is an L-shaped basin where nature has reclaimed the scene. Linden Place, reopened in spring 2015 after nearly three decades of abandonment now runs high above the marshes of the former Flushing Airport. It feels like a departure from the city, considering that a quarter mile to the south this street is packed with ugly infill architecture.

The canal stretch of Mill Creek was within the largest outdoor parking lot in Queens, at 35 acres and nearly 3,000 spaces, used by the police as a tow pound. Costing $950 million to design and construct, the new academy was intended to consolidate any of the training elements of police work into a single campus.

Mill Creek's Present

Today, the furthermost reach of Mill Creek above the surface is at 20th Avenue, the northern border of the former Flushing Airport. Google Maps shows Mill Creek flowing from a point a few feet north of 20th Avenue, whose northern side was developed in 1998 as a shopping strip anchored by the retail giant Target and BJ’s Wholesale Club. A dead-end street constructed by this property in 1998, Petracca Place, carries the name of a construction company located on it.

Personal Reflections on Family History and the Holocaust

The narrative shifts to a personal reflection on family history, particularly the experiences of a Polish Holocaust survivor and the impact of those experiences on subsequent generations.

A Daughter's Perspective

Born in Brooklyn in the late ‘50s, the author shares the story of her parents, Sarah and Jack Borger. Her mother, born in New York City in 1912, was the daughter of Anna and Samuel Cohen, Russian immigrants who came to New York to escape persecution at the beginning of the 20th century. Her father, born in 1913 in Dombrowa, a city outside of Krakow, Poland, was the son of Ernestine (Esther) and Herman (Herschel) Borger.

A Mixed Marriage

Her parents met on a blind date in December 1948 and married six weeks later. Her mother was the first college graduate in her family, had many interests, both cultural and political, and, I believe, was a good intellectual match for my scholarly father. She considered their relationship a “mixed marriage”-she was an American Jew, born to uneducated, Jewishly observant Russian immigrants, and he was a Polish Holocaust survivor, exiled from a place that had been home to generations of his well-educated and urbane Jewish family. Her father spoke English perfectly, and both her parents spoke Yiddish, but there was always a chasm between them that a common language just couldn’t bridge.

The Burden of Exile

She believes that her father’s life as a refugee was both a blessing and a curse. A blessing, of course, since he survived, had a strong marriage, three healthy children, made a living in a field that he was passionate about, and, being the urbanite that he was, became the consummate New Yorker. But the curse would always linger: he was, in fact, in exile. He was driven from a place that was his intellectual and familial home.

Anecdotes and Fragments

What she will tell you about her father’s life in Poland are anecdotes heard throughout her childhood, mostly from her mother, with some information from his cousin, Morris Borger. Morris was from Mielec, a small city about an hour outside Krakow where her father, uncle and grandparents moved to when her father was a teenager. Morris stayed in Mielec until 1941 when the city was overtaken by the Nazis. Through pure luck he escaped this Nazi invasion and went on the run for the next 4 years. He and her father reunited after liberation and were together in Paris until immigrating together to NY. Morris and her father were together in Siberia and then Paris, and then came to the United States together in 1948, sponsored by their cousins, the Zuckers, who had escaped from France in 1940. Morris and her father lived with the Zuckers on West End Avenue and 88th Street. Eventually they each married American women and Morris lived here on the UWS with his family until making aliyah in 1990.

Silence and Perceptions

She needs to emphasize this: her father never talked to her sisters and her about his experiences during the war; he rarely spoke of his life before the war; and hardly ever spoke about his parents, her grandparents. One more thing she needs to emphasize: these are her own perceptions, culled from years of living with a visceral understanding of her father’s life, not from actual testimonies or hard facts. What she tells you may not be the whole truth; you may wonder how life in Poland, for Jews, pre-World War II could have been a good, or fulfilling, existence, or exempt from great fear and foreboding.

Life in Poland

Her father, known by his Polish name Mundek, grew up in a relatively well-off family. His father Herschel was a businessman; his mother Esther Koller was a housewife. They moved to a bigger city, Rzeczow, when her father was a child. There he attended a Gymnasium where they studied Latin along with intensive study of Greek and Roman classics, literature and art. His cousin Morris told her that they went to state-operated schools where they were immersed in Polish literature, national myths and war heroes; they were, in fact, Polish patriots. There was always a question, however, whether Jews could really ever become Polish without a hyphen, that is, a Polish-Jew. But her father lived and studied among non-Jews and, it seemed, considered himself Polish. Her father’s exceptional education continued-by 1937 at the age of 24 he had graduated from the University of Krakow with a law degree.

The Fateful Decision

Here is an anecdote her mother told her: by 1939 her grandparents had moved from Rzeczow to Mielec, another small city close to Krakow. They had a beautiful home that they didn’t want to abandon for the unknown. The common family lore is that her grandmother said to her sons, “you two should leave; but don’t worry, nothing will happen to us here. We’re safe in our home.” From what she understands, her grandparents were safe in Mielec until 1941 when the Nazis overtook the city and deported the Jews in one day. But right before September 1, 1939, her father and some of his relatives, but not her grandparents, fled east and were captured by the Russians.

Lost to History

Her grandparents were killed. She had, and still has, very few details of when they were taken from their home, where they were taken, or where and how they died. And she only learned these few details in dribs and drabs. As she mentioned, we never had conversations with her father about his parents. When she was a teenager her father caught her smoking. He told her that his father, her grandfather, was addicted to nicotine and he would trade his food for cigarettes in Mauthaussen concentration camp. He ultimately died of starvation in the camp. Her father knew this because his landsman, fellow countryman, Sam Garden, who survived the war and lived in New York and was in close touch with her father, was in the same camp as her grandfather and bore witness to his death. She sat in shock as her father told her this. No conversation ensued; he just walked away. She hadn’t even known that her father had any details about how his father died. He never made her sisters and her feel ungrateful for all our blessings, for the safe and comfortable lives he gave us. He never brought up the horrors that he and his family endured in order to make us feel, perhaps, that our teenage problems weren’t valid because they weren’t life or death. And her grandmother. Well, “she was on a boat that was sunk in the Baltic.” This is what our mother told us. What boat? Where was it going? Who sunk it? Why wasn’t she with her grandfather? She doesn’t know. Her sister has researched it and hasn’t found any information to confirm it. It wasn’t until she was an adult that she felt such deep heartbreak for her father that he didn’t know where or how his mother died.

Post-War Connections

All the relatives who were with her father in Siberia survived and all immigrated to the United States in the late 1940’s except her uncle Benek, her father’s brother, who settled in Munich after the war and married another Polish survivor. They had one daughter together, her cousin Ester, who now lives in Israel and with whom she has a close relationship. Does Ester know any more than she? No. Her father was his most animated, and, perhaps, happiest, when he got together with his Polish friends and relatives, many of whom lived in New York. They would laugh a lot and tell stories-always in Polish, never in English or Yiddish. It was their private world.

Two Worlds

Her family straddled two worlds-the one where she was part of a “normal” American family, and another which included both a wealth of European charm and sophistication as well as a lot of horrible, embarrassing secrets. You may not know it to look at us, because we did “normal” things: three young American girls who had lots of friends running in and out of the house, having sleepovers, listening to loud rock and roll music. But one very vivid memory sums up the “other” world: they lived in a big house in Brooklyn with different levels, and when she had friends sleep over, she always brought them to the fold-out couch in the basement, because if they slept upstairs in her bedroom, which was next to her parents’ bedroom, they might hear her father screaming in the middle of the night. And how do I explain that?

Trauma and Loss

Her father met and married her mother soon after he arrived in NY; they were both in their mid-30s and eager to start a family. If he wanted to resume his career as a lawyer he would have needed to go back to law school. She believes they thought that it just wasn’t practical at that point in his life. But he did decide to get a Masters in Greek and Roman Classics at NYU (he worked while going to school). So he left behind his two passions - law and academics. More loss. A great part of her father’s post-war trauma was due to the assault on his idealism. Not only did he grieve for the loss of his parents, the loss of his home, the loss of his intended future; he grieved over the human condition and the depth of humiliation and persecution that one people can inflict upon another.

A Passion for Social Justice

When he came to the United States he loved the relative freedom but hated how racism hurt so many people. She recently read that Albert Einstein, a German Jew who left Germany for the States just as Hitler came to power, became a fierce civil rights activist. He said, “Being a Jew myself, perhaps I can understand and empathize with how black people feel as victims of discrimination.” And W.E.B. These words and sentiments perfectly captured the pain that her father lived with as he witnessed, yet again, the dangerous evil of racism. Her father had great compassion for all beings and taught her sisters and her that if one person is persecuted, we are all persecuted, and that there could not be freedom for anyone unless there is freedom for everyone.

Choosing a Career

After leaving both law and academics she believes that he needed to choose a career that would align with his passion for social justice, hoping to make a difference. He chose to become a social worker for the New York City Department of Social Services working with welfare recipients where he saw, on a daily basis, the hardships that whole communities faced as a result of economic and social inequalities in his newly adopted country. The system continually worked against his poor clients and he eventually felt defeated.

A Sudden End

Her father died suddenly in 1977 at the age of 64. He wasn’t sick; he didn’t have heart disease. It was probably a stroke, though we’ll never know for sure. Her sister Tina thinks he may have died because he wanted to-he had had enough. Her father no doubt suffered from PTSD and undiagnosed depression but he never sought professional help. He functioned and went to work every day. He died before it became commonplace for survivors and their children to visit their original homeland. It had never occurred to her that Poland was even an option to visit. It was a surreal state of mind, not an actual place.

A Journey to Poland

Almost 24 years after her father’s death, her London cousin, David Newman, told her that he and his 22 year-old son Al were going to Poland so Al can see his grandfather’s birthplace. She had envisioned a trip like this with her sisters. However, Ricki did not want to go to Poland-it was enough, she said, for her just to imagine it. And Tina couldn’t take the time from her family. So she jumped at the chance to do this trip with her cousins. The entire trip, in April 2001, included a week in Israel and was serendipitous from the first moments. They left London by car the day after the Passover seders (they picked this time of year because it was convenient for them; the fact that they were traveling during the holiday commemorating the liberation of the Jews was a very meaningful, yet understated coincidence). They drove from England to Europe, through France, Germany, Czechoslovakia and into Poland. The road trip was fantastic! They all got along great; they laughed a lot and ate a lot. And then they crossed into Poland and she broke down.

Krakow and Mielec

Their first day they went to the old city of Krakow which she had heard was beautiful, “the Paris of the East.” Well, she couldn’t see the beauty. She was overwhelmed with feelings of loss and doom. They walked past the university buildings and her cousin David noticed a building sign in Polish that seemed to say “Judicial” leaving them to assume that this was indeed the Law School where her father studied. Next they went to Mielec. Although her father only moved there in his late teens, they always thought of this as her father’s home, perhaps because that’s where he left his parents. The hotel they stayed in was situated right near the railroad tracks. As they drove in, there she saw, big as day, the railroad station sign: Mielec. M-I-E-L-E-C. It was real. It was haunting. Is this where her grandparents were rounded up? The train track image, though used as a cliché these days to represent the plight of the European Jews, is incredibly evocative. And the city itself: she doesn’t know what it looked like in the 1930s when her grandparents had their “beautiful home” but now she saw lots of grey block buildings (presumably built post-war) and not much charm. But it still had an active central market square where her grandmother probably did her shopping and the train station that provided easy access to Krakow. It wasn’t a quaint village or a little shtetl.

Walking on Ashes

While walking around these Polish cities and towns she was overcome by the sense that she was walking on the ashes of a whole community. And she was. This is where so much of “it” happened. Jews, people, like her, were killed. And they didn’t have graves. Her grandparents didn’t have graves. Her father never had the chance to mourn them appropriately. Oh my goodness, he never had the chance to mourn them appropriately!

Yom Ha’shoah in Israel

She left David and Al to drive home to London while she was off to Israel to visit her friend Jan Uhrbach who was in rabbinical school in Jerusalem. A day or two later was Yom Ha’shoah (another serendipitous aspect of her trip she hadn’t planned). She’s never experienced such a powerful and moving commemoration. As you might know, the Israelis memorialize the Holocaust every year with two moments of silence that everyone acknowledges together. Everyone.

A Family Album

That same evening she spent time with her father’s cousin Morris and, coincidently, her 18 year-old nephew Josh who was spending a semester studying in Jerusalem. Morris was the last living relative from that generation, and the last who survived the war with her father. Morris brought out a large photo album from his pre-war days in Mielec. Morris told her, your father and uncle Benek and I went back to Mielec after we were liberated to see what was left.

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