Blissville is a small part of Long Island City, New York bordered by Calvary Cemetery. Along with Newtown Creek, the Long Island Expressway is a rough-hewn outpost that New York City mostly forgets. It was once a bustling industrial center with a large percentage of Blissville is now occupied by auto repair shops and warehouses; however, there are still a few factories. There’s also a tiny scatter of stores and homes and many buildings that date back to the 18th century. Calvary Cemetery looms along the length of Greenpoint Avenue, the neighborhood’s main road. The walls surrounding the cemetery and a few of the streets surrounding it are filled with broken bottles and other garbage, giving the streets of Blissville an unsightly appearance. The gated cemetery is the only area of green within the neighborhood. There are no playgrounds or parks. The neighborhood’s splendor of the late 19th century and the location at the bank of Newtown Creek made Blissville an area to be aware of. In the 1850s, a line of smelting factories, glue factories, fat-rendering factories and refineries, foundries, and other heavy industries connected to the remainder of the nation by railroads that traversed the region. Not by chance, the creek is one of the most polluted water sources in the country.
The 1600s was when the region was reputed to be a hub for piracy and home to many pirates who traveled along with Captain Kidd. The legend goes that one of Kidd’s buddies let him store some of his wealth in the region. According to research on Newtown Creek by a group of Columbia University graduate students, Peter Stuyvesant couldn’t persuade anyone from New Amsterdam to settle in the region until the middle of the 1600s. In the early 1700s, farms were established, and settlements emerged. The land today, the cemetery, was an extensive tobacco plantation. H&A Power Washing Long Island
In the 1830s and 1940s, Neziah Bliss, an innovative industrialist, and businessman, purchased most of the land now Greenpoint and Blissville. A large part of Bliss’s success in business can be traced to the beginning of the 1800s, when he formed a coincidental relationship with Robert Fulton, the man who, though he didn’t invent steamboats, was the one responsible for creating them into a profitable commercial method of transportation.
Born in poverty and deprived in Connecticut, Bliss became one of the richest men in New York, establishing Novelty Iron Works as the manufacturer for the motors that drove a majority of the vessels constructed within New York. Being married into one of the most wealthy Dutch households in New York–the Meseroles only elevated his standing.
Nearby Restaurants
- Wahey can be found at 4005 Broadway, Queens, Long Island City, NY
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- Skinny’s location is at 4705 Central Blvd, Queens, Long Island City, NY
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