Fresh Pond-Traffic Historic District

Built in 1917. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1983. 16 historic topographic surveys show this location, the earliest from 1889.

From the record

“Fresh Pond-Traffic Historic District is a national historic district in Ridgewood, Queens, New York. It includes 197 contributing buildings built between 1914 and 1921.”
Wikipedia article Fresh Pond-Traffic Historic District, CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of 108 National Register listings published here for Queens County · listed in 1983 · category: District · built in 1917.

Sources: the Wikipedia article · the case file at the National Archives · the National Register database, National Park Service

The listing

Address. Roughly bounded by Fresh Pond Rd., Traffic Ave., Woodbine and Linden Sts., New York, 11385
When was it listed? September 1983
Category. district
Also known as. Ridgewood MRA
Borough. Queens
When was it built? 1917
National Register reference number. 83001770 - the number the National Park Service assigned this property when it was listed, and the key its nomination file is catalogued under at the National Archives.

Then and now

1889 to 1995

The ground this property stands on, surveyed 106 years apart. Drag the handle to wipe between them. Both sheets are United States Geological Survey originals; neither has been altered.

Topographic sheet covering Fresh Pond-Traffic Historic District, surveyed 1995

Topographic sheet covering Fresh Pond-Traffic Historic District, surveyed 1889

Fires near this property

2,860 since 1992

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 2,860 fires within 5 miles of Fresh Pond-Traffic Historic District between 1992 and 2020, burning about 1,232 acres in total. 171 started naturally. 171 were recorded as arson. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a fire counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Reported cause	Fires
Missing data/not specified/undetermined	2043
Arson/incendiarism	171
Natural	171
Smoking	152
Misuse of fire by a minor	108
Equipment and vehicle use	97
Debris and open burning	83
Recreation and ceremony	24
Power generation/transmission/distribution	8
Railroad operations and maintenance	2
Fireworks	1

The most recent of them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service that recorded it.

Date	Cause	Size	Reported by	Name on the report
9 September 2015	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Fire Department of New York	NA
9 September 2015	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Fire Department of New York	NA
9 September 2014	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Fire Department of New York	not named
9 September 2010	Arson/incendiarism	under an acre	Fire Department of New York	not named
9 September 2005	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Fire Department of New York	not named
9 September 2005	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Fire Department of New York	not named
9 September 2005	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Fire Department of New York	not named
9 September 2005	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Fire Department of New York	not named

Every fire recorded in Queens County

Mines and quarries near this property

3 within 5 miles

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 3 workings within 5 miles of Fresh Pond-Traffic Historic District: 3 occurrences. None of them still produces. What was taken out: Molybdenum, Iron, Beryllium. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Site	Commodity	Status
49th St & 1st Ave Beryl Deposit	Beryllium	Occurrence
55th/56th Sts & 3rd Ave Deposit	Iron	Occurrence
Manhattan Island Occurrence	Molybdenum	Occurrence

Every working recorded in Queens County

Maps showing this location

16 surveys

United States Geological Survey topographic sheets whose coverage includes this point. Matched by taking the middle of the area the National Park Service maps for this listing, then testing that coordinate against the published boundary of every sheet.

1889 USGS Brooklyn quadrangle1:62500
1891 USGS Brooklyn quadrangle1:62500
1897 USGS Brooklyn quadrangle1:62500 - 3 printings
1898 USGS Brooklyn quadrangle1:62500
1900 USGS Brooklyn quadrangle1:62500 - 11 printings
1947 USGS Brooklyn quadrangle1:24000
1949 USGS New York quadrangle1:250000
1954 USGS New York quadrangle1:250000 - 2 printings
1956 USGS Brooklyn quadrangle1:24000 - 2 printings
1957 USGS New York quadrangle1:250000
1958 USGS New York quadrangle1:250000 - 3 printings
1960 USGS New York quadrangle1:250000 - 2 printings
1967 USGS Brooklyn quadrangle1:24000 - 4 printings
1969 USGS New York quadrangle1:250000
1984 USGS Long Island West quadrangle1:100000 - 2 printings
1995 USGS Brooklyn quadrangle1:24000

Listed places nearby

6 within 8 miles

Other National Register properties close enough to walk or drive between, ordered by distance from this one. Both positions come from the same geocoding pass that matched these properties to their map sheets.

Property	Distance	Listed
68th Avenue-64th Place Historic District	0.3 miles	1983
Ridgewood Fresh Pond Road-Myrtle Avenue Historic District	0.4 miles	2022
Madison-Putnam-60th Place Historic District	0.4 miles	1983
Central Ridgewood Historic District	0.4 miles	1983
Woodbine-Palmetto-Gates Historic District	0.4 miles	1983
St. Matthias Roman Catholic Church Complex	0.5 miles	2012

Sources for this property

National Archives record	The nomination case file for reference 83001770 in Record Group 79.
Wikipedia article	Community-written account of this property, licensed CC BY-SA.
Queens County	All 108 listed properties in this county.

Provenance

Listing record. National Park Service National Register of Historic Places, listed-properties dataset, current to 2026-05-22.
Map join. Address geocoded through the United States Census geocoder, then tested against the published boundary of every sheet in the USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection.
How this page is made. Listing fields come from federal records; map-sheet coverage is a labelled coordinate-to-boundary calculation, not a source-field claim.
Wildfire. Short, Karen C. 2022. Spatial wildfire occurrence data for the United States, 1992-2020 [FPA_FOD_20221014]. 6th Edition. Fort Collins, CO: Forest Service Research Data Archive. https://doi.org/10.2737/RDS-2013-0009.6 Collected with United States Government funding and usable without additional permissions or fees.
Mines and quarries. USGS Mineral Resources Data System (MRDS) https://mrdata.usgs.gov/mrds/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.