The wetlands in the hilly ground south and east of the village of Flushing, however, were fed by freshwater springs, and thus were "fresh meadows".

[18] In 1908, the mysterious sounds were discovered to be coming from a recluse who lived in a small hut and sang Irish folk songs at night.

[19][20] During the late 1880s, Parsons Nurseries was importing 10,000 Japanese maples into the United States each year with help from Swiss immigrant John R.

[22] Samuel Bowne Parsons gave the lake on his property the name "kissena", which he thought was the Chippewa word for "it is cold".

[32][8] The group chose the intersection of Fresh Meadow Lane and Nassau Boulevard as the site, because the land was suitable for golf and roads provided accessibility to other parts of the city.

[37] People in attendance included New York State Supreme Court Justices Mitchell May, Edward Lazansky, and Harry Lewis, and Borough President Maurice E.

173 was originally supposed to be built on the site of Utopia Playground one block west, but the school had been relocated due to opposition from Robert Moses, the New York City parks commissioner.

[53] In 1949, architectural critic Lewis Mumford described the Fresh Meadows housing complex as "perhaps the most positive and exhilarating example of large-scale community planning in this country".

[57]New York Life Insurance Company built a 12-acre shopping center on 188th Street at Horace Harding Expressway.

[47] The QM1 express bus to Manhattan started operating in 1968 as part of a 90-day trial run proposed by city traffic commissioner Henry A. Barnes, transportation administrator Arthur A. Palmer, and the New York Life Insurance Company.

[66] In 1972, Harry B. Helmsley and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation partnered to buy the Fresh Meadows housing and retail complex for $53 million from the New York Life Insurance Company.

[77] The farm gradually become unprofitable, and in 2001, John Klein Sr. signed a contract to sell the two-acre property to Flushing-based developer Audrey Realty, who wanted to build 22 two-family homes on the site.

[81] The community later learned that the developer was owned by the family of Tommy Huang, whose permits to restore the landmark RKO Keith's Theater in Flushing were revoked when he destroyed its lobby.

[81][82] Huang had also admitted to failing to report a spill of 10,000 gallons of heating oil from an underground tank into the soil beneath the RKO Keith's Theater in 1999.

[81] Faced with strong community opposition, Huang and Audrey Realty decided not to go forward with the plan,[83] and they instead agreed to sell the land to a Westchester-based developer, Steven Judelson.

[87][83] Huang attempted to evict the day-care center in 2009, saying that he needed to end the lease early in order to sell the property.

[85] Huang finally sold the property to Ziming Shen's Fresh Meadows Children's Farm LLC for $5.6 million in 2014.

[105] It is bordered by the neighborhoods of Hillcrest to the west, Fresh Meadows to the north and east, and Jamaica Estates to the south.

[107][108] The Utopia Land Company intended to build a cooperative community for Jewish families interested in moving away from the Lower East Side of Manhattan.

[111][112] In 1937, the company bought 27 acres (11 ha) of contiguous farmland on the south side of Black Stump Road (now 73rd Avenue) from the Klein family.

[117] The Batterman family owned and operated a farm on land bounded by Union Turnpike, Utopia Parkway, 75th Avenue, and 170th Street.

[118] In 1938, the Foch Building Corporation bought the Batterman Estate in order to develop it into a residential neighborhood, named University Manor.

[118] Based on data from the 2010 United States Census, the population of Fresh Meadows (including Utopia but excluding Hillcrest) was 17,812, a change of 439 (2.5%) from the 17,373 counted in 2000.

Based on this calculation, as of 2018[update], Fresh Meadows is considered to be high-income relative to the rest of the city and not gentrifying.

Zip codes 11365 and 11366 together have an estimated population of 59,873 as of 2017, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, but this also includes part of Auburndale north of the Long Island Expressway, while excluding Hillcrest.

[119]: 14 The concentration of fine particulate matter, the deadliest type of air pollutant, in Fresh Meadows is 0.0078 milligrams per cubic metre (7.8×10−9 oz/cu ft), lower than the citywide and boroughwide averages.

[120]: 24 (PDF p. 55) [119]: 6  Additionally, 86% of high school students in Fresh Meadows graduate on time, more than the citywide average of 75%.

These include the:[154] In addition, the Union Turnpike express buses run along Union Turnpike, 188th Street, and 73rd Avenue, providing service to Manhattan:[154][162][156] The Long Island Rail Road (LIRR)'s Auburndale station is nearby and provides access on the Port Washington Branch to Midtown Manhattan.

[165]: 147 [166] In the 1970s, an extension of the subway system along Horace Harding Expressway was proposed as part of the Program for Action, but it was ultimately not built.

In October 2011, a book written by Fred Cantor and Debra Davidson that chronicled the history of Fresh Meadows was released.