9. Queens Place was built around the Sendek household
The coliseum-shaped shopping center on Queens Boulevard opened to the public in 1965 and was originally owned by Macy’s. When creating a plan for the mall’s construction in the late 1950s, the company concluded that 10 properties located along 55th Avenue would need to be demolished to accommodate the mall’s modernist design.
One of those property owners was Mary Sendek, who had lived with her husband Joseph in that very same house since 1925. Macy’s made numerous offers to purchase the property, but Mary wouldn’t budge. The company instead decided on sacrificing the mall’s intended circular design to prevent it from overlapping the Sendek property. This is the reason why there’s a seemingly uncharacteristic indent along the outside of the mall. The property was eventually demolished sometime after Mary Sendek’s death in 1980 and was converted into a small office building.
