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is a working-middle class neighborhood in the New York City borough of Queens. It is located north of Flushing on Flushing Bay and the East River and is part of the Queens Community Board 7. Willets Point Boulevard and the Whitestone Expressway are often taken as the neighborhood's approximate boundaries with Flushing and Whitestone.
It was a largely German American community. Today, College Point is a mildly industrial but mostly residential community.
College Point was named for St. Paul's College, a seminary founded in 1835 by the Rev. Augustus Muhlenberg. The college closed circa 1850, but the name stuck. Former names include Lawrence's Neck, Tew's Neck, Flammersberg, and Strattonsport.
The original settler of this area was Captain William Lawrence. He was also the largest land holder of the original incorporators of Flushing, L.I. He arrived in America on the ship "Planter" in the 1630s. He married the oldest daughter of Richard "Bull Rider" Smith who founded Smithtown L.I. His son from his first wife, William Jr. married the youngest daughter of "Bull Rider" Smith.
Much later, the town was later expanded by a German-American industrialist, Conrad Poppenhusen, who made his fortune in manufacturing hard rubber combs. He founded the community primarily for his workers and became a philanthropist contributor to churches, libraries, and The Poppenhusen Institute, an educational beacon of College Point. He is responsible for the first free kindergarten in America. He connected College Point to Flushing by the Flushing and North Side Railroad, later called Whitestone Branch. A special monument on College Point Boulevard, one of the main streets in College Point, stands testament to Poppenhusen.
College Point became a center for breweries and day trip resorts, but during Prohibition the community shifted towards airplane parts manufacturing.
In 1997, the Queens Historical Society bestowed a "Queensmark" award on College Point, in hopes of encouraging historical preservation of local landmark architecture.