A Neighborhood Layered by Generations of Arrival
Woodside has absorbed wave after wave of newcomers for more than a century, from the Irish families who gave the neighborhood much of its early character to the Filipino, Latin American, and South Asian communities who have shaped it more recently, all sharing the same stretch of Roosevelt Avenue beneath the elevated 7 train. Doughboy Plaza, the small memorial square near the LIRR station, sits at something like the neighborhood's civic center, a rare open pause in an otherwise tightly packed grid of apartment buildings and storefronts. Woodside rarely slows down, and its gift-giving reflects that constant motion.
With so many households representing different traditions on the same blocks, BonVivant's Woodside deliveries cover an unusually wide range in a single week — a Shabbat basket for one building, a holiday gift rooted in an entirely different calendar for the building next door, a birthday basket that needs to clear a walk-up stairwell before dinner. The neighborhood's density means most deliveries are hand-to-door rather than left with a doorman, since walk-ups and small apartment buildings make up much of the housing stock.
