Kingsford Triangle

The name Kingsford is a combination of Kingston Place and Wexford Terrace, two of the many streets in the Jamaica Estates section of Queens named after locations in Great Britain and Ireland.

Kingston-upon-Hull is a city located in Northeastern England at the mouth of the Hull River. The city was created by a royal charter of Edward I in 1299, when it was known as King’s Town upon Hull. The area grew into an industrial center in the 18th century, with large dock facilities built in 1775 that allowed the city to become an important fishing port. Fishing continued after World War II, when German bombing heavily damaged the area. The city remained Britain’s chief fishing port until the 1970s.

There was also a city known as Kingston in eastern Ireland, originally called Dunleary and built by the Irish king Lagohaire in the 5th century. The town’s name was changed to Kingston during English Colonial rule in 1821 after a visit from King George IV. After Ireland gained its independence from Great Britain in 1922, the town adopted its original Irish name.

Wexford Terrace takes its name from a province of the same name in southeastern Ireland. Situated in Leinster Providence, adjacent to St. George’s Channel, Wexford is Ireland’s leading agricultural county, with about one third of Wexford’s lands used for farming. The county’s major city is the port of Wexford, one of the many harbors in the province.

Jamaica Estates also contains Devonshire Road, named for Devonshire County, England. Located in the southwestern portion of England, the county is situated between the English and Bristol Channels. Known for its many national parks, Devonshire is a destination for many English vacationers. The province contains traces of Roman habitation and a fortress that later became known as Exeter which was established to defend the southwestern frontier. The fortress was the target of raids by people from what is now the Netherlands throughout the 11th century.

Kent Street takes its name from the English county where Julius Cesar and his men landed in 55 BCE, beginning a Roman conquest of England that would be completed in CE 43. In the Fifth century the area was invaded by inhabitants of Jutland, now mainland Denmark and the Schleswig-Holstein portion of Germany, and became one of seven Anglo-Saxon counties in what is now Great Britain. Chevy Chase Street is named after a 1388 battle (also known as the Battle of Otterburn) between Scottish forces, led by James Douglass (1358-1388), and English forces, led by Sir Henry Percy, also known as Hotspur. The Scottish won the battle, but Douglas was killed during the fighting.

Perth, a city in eastern Scotland and namesake of Perth Road, is that nation’s ancient capital. It is also where Protestant John Knox made his famous sermon against idolatry in 1559 and where Scottish King James I was murdered in 1437. The city was captured by English king Edward I in 1298 and retaken by the Scottish in 1311 by Robert Bruce. The English held the city again from 1335 to 1339 before the Scots regained power.

Jamaica Estates consists of about 503 acres, now divided into eighty-eight square blocks of residential homes. The land was originally purchased in 1907 by the Jamaica Estates Company and development of the neighborhood began a year later. Kingsford Triangle is part of the Greenstreets program, a joint Parks project whose goal is to convert paved street properties, such as triangles and malls, into green spaces. The triangle contains various plantings added in the fall of 2000 that adds greenery to Jamaica Estates.