QUEENS — Long before the World's Fairs and jazz made the neighborhood famous, Corona was a quiet seaside town.
The shores of Flushing Bay were filled with bathing pavilions, and people would fish for snappers and dig for mussels, or swing into the water from large ropes tied to trees.
Corona's history, which dates back to the 1600s, is explored through rare photographs and newspaper clippings shared in "Corona: The Early Years," recently released by Arcadia Publishing.
Authors Jason Antos and Constantine Theodosiou, who also collaborated on a book looking back at Jackson Heights' history, set out to find rarely-seen photos that captured the neighborhood in its infancy.
"We wanted to go in deep and see what we can find," Antos said.
They spent months through the borough's archives and records kept by historical societies, and found a large share of pictures in the borough's topographical bureau.
While many texts on Corona touch on the fairs or the "valley of the ashes" that existed before the park, the neighborhood has a history beyond that.
Horses hung out around "The Horse Brook," a tributary from the Flushing River. The frozen Flushing Bay was home to ice fishing and recreation.
And while baseball and tennis is now played across the Grand Central Parkway, Corona was at one time home to one of the best racetracks in the country, which opened in 1854.
"You haven't read anything about Corona because this is the first book to touch on this history in this fashion," Theodosiou said.
The neighborhood was known as West Flushing until 1870, when a developer petitioned to name it "Corona" — because it was the "Crown of Queens County," according to the book.
It was also briefly called Bochton for the owner of a French china factory and porcelain plant, William Boch, who settled in the neighborhood.
Louis Comfort Tiffany opened a factory in 1893, on the corner of what is now 43rd Avenue and 97th Place, according to the book. The factory closed in 1938 and the building remained in Corona until 2013, when it was demolished to build a new school.
Throughout the decades, countless immigrants settled in Corona, spilling over from Manhattan to find a better life, the authors said.
"The story of Queens is really the story of an extended New York City," Theodosiou said.
The authors end the book just before the 1939 World's Fair, since that event and the one nearly 30 years later have been well-documented.
Showcasing its earliest yeas was a chance to show the neighborhood is the same as other well-documented neighborhoods in Queens.
"Corona has that equal history — it does go back that far," Antos said.
Theodosiou said old and new residents will equally enjoy the look back.
"It's very exciting thing that we're presenting Corona so people can understand its background," he said.
"Corona: The Early Years" is available on Amazon and other retailers.
