The Doyenne of Clintonville Street

With its blue dome, the St. Nicholas Russian Orthodox Church at 14-65 Clintonville Street is one of several surprising architectural gems among the tract housing of Whitestone. At first glance, it appears to be two large Quonset huts making an “X” shape, topped out by an onion dome in one of the purest shades of blue imaginable.

As for Clintonville Street, it is is so named because it runs through a section of Whitestone that used to be named for DeWitt Clinton (1769-1828), an early New York State polymath who held every important political office save Vice President or President. He served in the New York State Assembly and as a State Senator (1798-1802; 1806-1811); as U.S. Senator from New York (1802-1803); as a three-term New York City mayor (1803-1815); as New York State Governor (1817-1822); and indeed ran unsuccessfully for U.S. President as a Federalist against incumbent President James Madison in 1812. Among other accomplishments, his influence was elemental in getting the Erie Canal constructed.

DeWitt Clinton lived in two of Queens residences, particularly during his time as mayor. His mansion in Maspeth stood on today’s 58th Street north of 56th Road until it burned down in 1933. He also summered in Whitestone — the part of it close to the East River at about 151st street, 7th Avenue and Leggett Place.

Clintonville Street likely escaped being given a street number due to its inability to be shoehorned into the series of east-west-north-south Queens avenues, roads, drives, streets and places that have all borne numbers after city fathers chose to “simplify” the Queens street naming system beginning in 1915. It runs diagonally through Whitestone’s street grid south from 6th Avenue near the East River until it catches up with another diagonal, Francis Lewis Boulevard, at 23rd Avenue.

There has been a St. Nicholas Church, complete with onion dome, at 14-65 Clintonville Street since 1919, but the present building, the work of architect Sergei Padukow, was built in 1969. The church is covered in reflective aluminum panels in futuristic patterns, but the main focus is the blue dome, which makes it, in my opinion, second only to Louis Allmendiger’s Cathedral of the Transfiguration on Driggs Avenue and North 12th Street in Williamsburg.

But church onion domes are always cool.