Known as Newtown up until two years before being incorporated into Greater New York, this neighborhood is perhaps the most centrally located in all of western Queens, surrounded by Woodside, Jackson Heights, Corona, Rego Park, Middle Village, but not, curiously, by East Elmhurst which is further north. Four of the old village roads: Broadway, Grand Avenue, Corona Avenue, and the beginnings of Woodhaven Boulevard course through the neighborhood in a meandering manner. Coupled with the LIRR, that bifurcates into two above-ground rail lines at the western edge of the neighborhood, they have sliced the New York grid into a patchwork of smaller clusters of blocks nestled into the interstices of the remaining land. This gives Elmhurst a certain creative license—from a city planning point of view—that pushes the limits even further from the traditional urban norms. It is rare to find block-length housing tracts that do not have to adapt to these irregular conditions.