Balkan is the Oldest NYC sewer company in Continuous operation

Balkan is the Oldest sewer company in Continuous operation under the same name in NYC

This hand painted Joseph L. Balkan sign made in the mid 1950′s¬†touts the phone number ‘MIchigan 1-1222‘. Today, well over 50 years later the name is the same and the phone number still rings (try it!). This makes Joseph L. Balkan the oldest sewer and water main company in continuous operation under the same name in the City of New York. While some firms may distance themselves from their past, Balkan goes to great lengths to keep connected to its roots. That is why Balkan maintains the original phone number even after re-locating to expanded facilities three times over its history. Balkan Sewer and Water Main Service has been a proud part of the diversified community of Richmond Hill for almost 40 years.

Since then, Joseph L. Balkan has operated under the same trusted name. That translates into an iron-clad and secure guarantee on Balkans work, and the security of customer care before, during, and long after the work is done.

About Richmond Hill Queens

The hill referred to as Richmond Hill Queens is a moraine created by debris and rocks collected while glaciers advanced down North America.

Richmond Hill is rich in history. The Battle of Long Island, one of the bloodiest battles of the Revolutionary War, was fought in 1776 along the ridge now in Forest Park, near what is now the golf course clubhouse. Protected by its thickly wooded area, American riflemen used guerrilla warfare tactics to attack and defeat the Hessians.

Richmond Hill’s name was inspired either by a suburban town near London, England, or because of Edward Richmond, a landscape architect in the mid-1800s who designed much of the neighborhood. In 1868, a successful banker named Albon P. Man bought the Lefferts and Welling farms, and hired Richmond to lay out the community. Over the next decade streets, schools, a church, and a railroad were built, thus making the area one of the earliest residential communities on Long Island. The area is well known for its large-frame single family houses, many of which have been preserved since the turn of the twentieth century. Many of the Queen Anne Victorian homes of old Richmond Hill still stand in the area today. The area first became developed in the later decades of the 19th Century with the 1868 opening of the Richmond Hill railroad station at the intersection of Hillside Avenue and Babbage Street, on the Montauk railroad line between Long Island City and eastern Long Island.

The area received further development in 1918, when the BMT Jamaica Avenue elevated train line (today the J/Z lines of the New York City Subway) was extended in the neighborhood. It is also the southern port for the A train, which heads at the busy intersection of Liberty Ave & Lefferts Blvd.

DIVERSITY

Originally, many European families (Dutch, British, Irish, Scotch, Danish, and German) had lived in Richmond Hill. There is a north and south Richmond Hill. The division is Atlantic Avenue. Today the southside of Richmond Hill mostly consists of South Asian Americans and Caribbean Americans (many of whom are Hispanic). Richmond Hill has the largest Sikh population in the City of New York and also contributes to the diversity of the borough of Queens. Since the 1970s many Caribbean Indians from Guyana and Trinidad have emigrated to the United States, especially to Richmond Hill and Jamaica in Queens, and brought the Hindu and Muslim traditions to their new home.

About Joseph L. Balkan Inc.

Balkan Plumbing is the largest sewer & water service  company in NYC. We are licensed, bonded, and insured. As a family run business in operation for over 50 years, our 10 year guarantee means we continue to stand by our work after the job is done. We are expertly equipped, from our 48,000 square foot facility to dozens of trucks, heavy moving equipment, backhoes and pneumatics. For all your sewer & water service, fire hydrants, manholes, water mains and trench drains contact Balkan Plumbing today.

Joseph L. Balkan Inc. 130-01 Jamaica Avenue Richmond Hill, NY 11418 | Phone: (718) 568-0062 | Espanol (718) 943 -5720 | Fax: (718) 849-9570 www.balkanplumbing.com