Map - Rego Park, Queens (Rego Park)

Rego Park is a neighborhood in the borough of Queens in New York City. Rego Park is bordered to the north by Elmhurst and Corona, to the east and south by Forest Hills, and to the west by Middle Village. Rego Park's boundaries include Queens Boulevard, the Long Island Expressway, Woodhaven Boulevard, and Yellowstone Boulevard. There is a large Jewish population in the neighborhood, which features high-rise apartment buildings and detached houses, as well as a large commercial zone.

Rego Park is located in Queens Community District 6 and its ZIP Code is 11374. It is patrolled by the New York City Police Department's 112th Precinct. Politically, Rego Park is represented by the New York City Council's 29th District and a small part of the 24th and 25th Districts.

Rego Park is built on lands originally part of the Leni Lenape Nation. Possibly inhabited by members of the Canarsee band. By 1653, though, English and Dutch farmers moved into the area and founded a community called Whitepot, which was a part of the Township of Newtown. Whitepot is believed to be so named because Dutch settlers named the area "Whiteput", or "hollow creek"; later, English settlers Anglicized the name. The Remsen family created a burial ground, which is still located on Alderton Street near Metropolitan Avenue. The colonists also founded the Whitepot School, which operated until the late 19th century.

The area turned out to be good for farming, the colonists cultivated hay, straw, rye, corn, oats, and vegetables. The original Dutch, English, and German farmers sold their produce in Manhattan; by the end of the 19th century, though, Chinese farmers moved in and sold their goods exclusively to Chinatown.

The settlement was renamed Rego Park after the Real Good Construction Company, which began development of the area in 1925. "Rego" comes from the first two letters of the first two words of the company's name. The company built 525 eight-room houses costing $8,000 each. Stores were built in 1926 on Queens Boulevard and 63rd Drive, and apartment buildings were built in 1927–1928. In 1930, the Independent Subway System began work on eight IND Queens Boulevard Line stations in the area, at a cost of $5 million. The subway extension was concurrent with the Real Good Construction Company's completion of apartment buildings near Queens Boulevard and one-family homes throughout the rest of the neighborhood.

The short block of 63rd Drive between Austin Street and the Long Island Railroad overpass was the scene of a fire in February 1972 that claimed a row of stores and the neighborhood library. The blistering "Rego Park Inferno" reportedly started in the second store on the block from Austin Street, a shoe store, and quickly spread with the gusting winds to neighboring stores, including a television repair shop, toy store, pet shop and a pioneering Indian restaurant, and finally, the library, where row upon row of oily books and wooden shelves sent flames high into the sky and up the embankment of the railroad. Firefighters scrambled to keep the windswept flames from reaching an apartment house behind the stores, a new Key Food supermarket across Austin Street, or the Shell gas station just across the drive. The library caved in before flames could damage the electrical wires lining the railroad. A new library eventually opened across the street (on the former site of the Shell gas station). After the fire, until the new library was built, the community was served by a mobile "Bookmobile" library which parked under the LIRR tracks on 63rd Drive. A similar fire had decimated the same block in 1959.