Typical landscape of Queens, in meters high above the road and police cars guarding the area. This area owes its name to Queen Catherine of Braganza, wife of Charles II of England. This happened in the late seventeenth century, the first inhabitants who settled here were modest farmers. The district experienced a population boom with the arrival of the train in 1910. In the 1920s and 1930s, Queens lived a golden age with the installation of Paramount Studios that soon became known as Astoria Movie Studio and became the capital of cinema in the East Coast. This is where Rudolph Valentino, the Marx Brothers and many others are first put in front of a camera. The bad news was the demise of silent films, which also meant the end of the hegemony of the studies. Queens's population continued to grow and increasingly embracing ethnic groups that had one thing in common: the lack of means. Today is multi-ethnic neighborhood in New York. Here the cultures coexist with each other, each with its own pace. On landing in Queens, one feels beating another lifestyle, the buildings are lower, the sidewalks are more clear and less people are going fast. Long considered as a disinherited neighborhood, now opens up to tourism, while preserving its architectural treasures and memories. Jack Kerouac lived here, Will Rogers, Heinrich Steinwerg, Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong, Dizzy Gillespie, Fats Waller and Count Basie, among others. Queens was formed in 1683 as one of the 12 original counties of New York and was named in honor of the queen consort, Catherine of Braganza, wife of Charles II. Queens is often considered as one of the more peripheral from the boroughs of New York. The eastern neighborhoods have the look and feel like the suburbs of western Nassau County. However, in the east and northwest sections, Queens is home to many urban neighborhoods and several business districts. In Long Island City, Queens on the opposite shore of Manhattan lies the Citicorp building, the tallest skyscraper in New York, including those located outside of Manhattan. It is also the tallest building in Long Island. European colonization brought both Netherlands and England, as part of the colony of New Netherland. The first settlements were established in 1635, with colonies in Maspeth in 1642, and Vlissingen (now Flushing) in 1643. Other early settlements were Newtown (Elmhurst today) and Jamaica. Anyway, these cities were inhabited by English settlers of New England, coming from the eastern part of Long Island (Suffolk County) and were subject to the laws of the Netherlands. After the capture of the colony by the English and be renamed New York in 1664, the area (and all of Long Island) became known as Yorkshire.