Greenstreet

Queens Malls cover sixteen traffic islands along Queens Boulevard from 80th Road to 83rd Street, adjacent to Queens Borough Hall and the Queens Criminal Court. Built in 1941, Borough Hall is a neo-classical red brick and limestone structure designed by William Gehron and Andrew J. Thomas. The Queens Criminal Court was built in 1996 by the architecture firm Ehrenkrantz & Eckstut. It displays a more modern style than Borough Hall, featuring a curved limestone and stainless steel structure.

Malls were originally playing fields for the game of Pall Mall, typically located near military quarters. Because of their location, malls were frequently used for parades, and later came to be enjoyed as strolling promenades. The first malls were built during the 17th century in Italy and France but soon spread to England.

After their introduction to the Unites States by English colonists, malls diverged into two different forms. Some malls, such as the one leading to the Capitol in Washington DC, took on the form of large lawns used as walkways to guide pedestrians to monuments. Others became narrow landscaped spaces, such as these, which are set between two lanes of traffic. The latter style developed because many of the roads on which malls are located became too congested for pedestrians to walk safely down the center. Thus, many malls are no longer pedestrian paths between lanes of quiet residential streets but instead are part of a landscaping technique intended to beautify streets with high traffic volumes.

Today, the word mall is most often associated with large enclosed shopping centers. This third type of mall began as a hybrid between shopping arcades, popular during the 19th century, and landscaped pedestrian promenades. These shopping promenades were the first enclosed shopping malls and were usually oriented around a central walkway that included trees, reminiscent of previous landscaped outdoor areas.

Queens Malls are part of the Greenstreets program, a collaboration between Parks and the Department of Transportation, whose goal is to convert paved street properties, such as triangles and malls, into green spaces. The malls contain various plantings including Japanese holly (Llex Crenata), lirope (Lirope spicata), and spirea (Spiraea opulifolia), adding greenery to this stretch of Queens Boulevard.