Coleman Square

I’d say no one outside Howard Beach knows where Coleman Square is, except the most obsessive map buff of which I am one. I hadn’t been in Howard Beach since I undertook a series of Queens walks during the pandemic year of 2020. In July 2026, I went back for a look-around. I got off at the Howard Beach A train station, which was massively built up when an AirTrain station was constructed to connect it to the JFK Airport terminals. Howard Beach is nearly completely residential and recreational, except for Cross Bay Boulevard and for this cluster of stores located on a section of what was 103rd Street but is now called Coleman Square.

Its businesses are numbered 1 through 10 instead of the usual hyphenated Queens addresses.The square features a bar, pizzeria, groceries, pest control, Chinese food, liquor store, auto body, dog grooming, nails, bakery, hair styling, car service, tax preparer and post office, in a concentrated area walkable from everywhere east of Shellbank Creek.

Seaman Bernard Coleman was killed at age 20 during WWI when, aboard the USS Texas, he was killed when struck in the head by boxes of ship’s stores. He was not killed in combat, but was the first “Howard Beacher” to die in WWI. A memorial to all area combatants killed in the USA’s 20th Century wars is located at 159th Avenue and Coleman Square. Coleman is buried in St. Raymond’s Cemetery in Westchester Square in the Bronx. Photos of other area veterans also appear, affixed to telephone poles.

Kevin Walsh is the webmaster of the award-winning website Forgotten NY, and the author of the books Forgotten New York (HarperCollins, 2006) and also, with the Greater Astoria Historical Society, Forgotten Queens (Arcadia, 2013)