Santa Claus was born in Elmhurst, Queens!

Clement Clarke Moore, author of 'Twas the Night Before Christmas (1882), spent most of his childhood at his family's Newtown (now Elmhurst) estate. P.S. 13 Clement Clarke Moore School on 55-01 94th Street and CC Moore Homestead Park on 83rd and Broadway in Elmhurst are named after the author.

Other Famous Residents include:

• Antonin Scalia, Supreme Court Justice
• Samuel Lord, Founder of Lord and Taylor, a department store
• Cord Meyer, prominent developer in the late 1800s and early 1900s, who developed Elmhurst
• William Casey, President Reagan’s campaign manager, chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, director of the Central Intelligence Agency
• Patty Duke, actress
• Don Rickles, comedian and actor
• Tommie Agee, Met's baseball legend
• Vera-Ellen, dancer, taught at the Anaranta Dance Studio above the Elmwood Movie Theater in Elmhurst

Corona's Legacy

The Corona area in Queens (south of LaGuardia Airport) was one of the first areas to which African Americans were permitted to move. As a result, the area attracted many prominent African Americans who wanted to live outside of the city, including:

Trumpeters Dizze Gillespie and Clark Terry
Saxophonists Cannonball and Nat Adderley
Jimmy Heath, who still lives in the Dorrie Miller co-ops in North Corona
Malcolm X
Duke Ellington
Ella Fitzgerald
Harry Belafonte

Read more in Joseph Berger's article in the New York Times