When New York City was formed in its modern borders in 1898, it included what was then the western half of Queens County. What was then the eastern half of Queens County was split off and became Nassau County.
Why was this done? It would have seemed more straightforward for New York City to incorporate all of the county rather than splitting it in half.
According to Google AI, “Queens was split during the 1898 consolidation of New York City because the more developed western portion was incorporated into the new metropolis, while the less populated eastern portion had no interest in joining and was politically and geographically distinct.” This seems credible to me.
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I have to admit it seems less credible to me.
I don’t see how the western half of Queens County was less politically connected to the eastern half of Queens County than it was to other neighboring counties.
The area that is now Nassau County has a much larger population than Richmond County (Staten Island) and shares a land border with New York City, while Staten Island is separated by water.
I can see it — the western 1/3 of the old county would have been socially and economically engaged more more directly and for longer with Manhattan and Brooklyn and there were already urbanization plans based on that, and their politicians more aligned with those cities’ organizations. The eastern 2/3 at the time was probably still much more rural and less City-centric. From the Wikipedia article apparently the eastern towns in the county were already seeking separation in the 1870s as the seat of the old county got moved to Long Island City right on the East River. So why would Brookhattan want to absorb them, too. At least Staten Island was right there at the entrance of the harbor.
What happened in 1897-98 was that the western towns of the county were dissolved and made a borough of the redesigned NYC, but NOT the whole county. Since that would create a sort of politico-administrative chimera, the state enacted that the parts not absorbed became a new county. This also apparently was influenced by a political demand from Albany, that the reformed city would NOT by itself elect a majority of the State Assembly, so it also denied them those seats.
Short answer, the city grew.
I grew up in Nassau County and have seen it citify over the years, and yes it’s basically an extension of Queens now but 40 yrs ago was quite distinct.
There was a similar situation in Missouri when St. Louis was split off from the rest of St. Louis County in 1877. St. Louis was already urban. industrialized, based around the Mississippi River, and connected to Illinois by a bridge. It had a large immigrant population. The rest of St. Louis County was rural, with small communities connected by dirt roads. City residents enjoyed many public services not available in the rural county, and felt their taxes were supporting the rural areas with little return.
Now, of course, the border between St. Louis City and St. Louis County is simply a line on the map, bur the two entities stubbornly resist reunification.
It’s still kind of distinct - the neighborhood of Bellerose, Queens has never been all that distinct from the places called Bellerose in Nassau , the same as the neighborhood of Floral Park is not all distinct from the village of Floral Park in Nassau. But a border area is never going to be all that different from one side to the other, whether it’s a city, state or national border. There’s much more of a difference if you pick any two places that aren’t right on the border - like Massapequa in Nassa and Glendale in Queens.