Queens: From Agricultural Hinterland to Vital Urban Corridor

In celebration of the late Jeffrey A. Kroessler’s book Rural County, Urban Borough: A History of Queens (Rutgers U. Press, 2025), his widow Laura Heim will discuss with Eve Kahn and Frampton Tolbert the unique production process and engaging content of this first comprehensive, scholarly and readable history of the great borough of Queens.

Laura Heim, architect and widow of author Jeffrey A. Kroessler, will discuss with Eve Kahn, lectures committee co-chair of the Victorian Society’s New York chapter, and Frampton Tolbert, Executive Director of the Historic Districts Council, the genesis, evolution, production, revelatory content, and impact of Kroessler’s posthumously published book, Rural County, Urban Borough: A History of Queens. A former wetlands, Queens today is a crowded cityscape of dense urban neighborhoods and suburban sprawl. Rural County, Urban Borough is a history of place, charting the rapid transformation of the Queens landscape, identifying what drove the borough’s development, from public infrastructure, architecture, and transportation to technological innovation and urban planning. The book dramatically chronicles how Queens’ relationship with the city has evolved as well as highlights how Queens residents, from all backgrounds, care for their neighborhoods and build their communities. Queens is integral to New York City and the wider world and reveals, in its evolution, the whole arc of American urban history.

Laura Heim, FAIA LEED AP, is an award-winning architect with a firm in historic Sunnyside Gardens, Queens. Her firm has a particular expertise in historic preservation and adaptive reuse/renovation. She has served as the Chair of Architecture on the Steering Committee of the Sunnyside Gardens Preservation Alliance, as president of the AIA Queens chapter, and on the Board of Directors of AIA New York State. She was the Co-Chair of the AIANY Fellows Committee in 2023. Currently, she is on the Board of Directors of the Historic Districts Council. She frequently collaborated on historic preservation work with her late husband, Jeffrey Kroessler, author of Rural County, Urban Borough.

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