Sunnyside, Queens: Sunnyside Gardens, Queens Boulevard and the 7 Train

Sunnyside Gardens is a designated New York City historic district, LP-2258, listed on the National Register of Historic Places on September 7, 1984 under reference number 84002919. The designated boundary runs easterly along the southern curbline of Barnett Avenue and southerly along the western curbline of 52nd Street, historically Dickson Street, to the southern curbline of 39th Avenue, historically Middleburg Avenue. The city's GIS boundary for the designated district measures about 54 acres.

The buildings, constructed between 1924-28, 1931-2 and 1935, are divided by the designation report into twelve courts — Carolin Gardens, Colonial Court, Hamilton Court, Hamilton Court Apartments, Harrison Place, Jefferson Court, Lincoln Court, Madison Court North and South, Monroe Court Apartments, Roosevelt Court, Washington Court and Wilson Court Apartments — and two Phipps Garden Apartment complexes, covering all or part of sixteen city blocks. The report calls Sunnyside Gardens "the first attempt to create a Garden City in the United States," and records that the City Housing Corporation purchased 76.67 acres of land in 1924, most from the Long Island Rail Road with smaller amounts from other landowners. In 1974 the New York City Planning Commission designated the area a "Special Planned Community Preservation District," one of four in the city.

Sunnyside Gardens Park, at 48-21 39th Avenue, was created as part of the original development and is included inside the designated district; the designation report calls it the largest privately held park in New York City and gives its size as about three acres. Celtic Park Apartments spans 42nd to 44th Streets between 48th and 50th Avenues, a nine-acre complex of 756 units converted to cooperative ownership in May 1986.

The local historian Vincent F. Seyfried records that Richard Bragaw built a gambrel-roofed house "in the English style atop Sunnyside Hill" in 1790, on the line of present-day 32nd Place between Northern Boulevard and Skillman Avenue, and that the house was demolished in July 1903 after the Pennsylvania Railroad acquired the property as part of the land assembly for the Sunnyside Yard. The Encyclopedia of New York City alternatively traces the modern neighborhood's name to a roadhouse built on Jackson Avenue in the 1850s and 1860s for visitors to the Fashion Race Course in Corona. The yard itself is split by the Department of City Planning into Sunnyside Yards (North), QN0161, which falls under the Astoria-Queensbridge community district equivalent, and Sunnyside Yards (South), QN0261, under the Long Island City-Sunnyside-Woodside approximation of Community District 2. A 2006 Landmarks Preservation Commission report on a Hunter's Point firehouse describes the historic city of Long Island City as "comprised of five separate neighborhoods: Ravenswood, Astoria, Steinway, Sunnyside, and Hunter's Point."

Along Queens Boulevard, a gantry carrying the neighborhood's name was erected at 46th Street in 1983. The Sunnyside Garden Arena stood at 44-11 Queens Boulevard, held about 2,500 spectators and operated until June 24, 1977; a portion of 45th Street was co-named in its honor in 2014. At 47-03 Queens Boulevard was the Coventry, a small live-music venue earlier called the Popcorn Pub: according to Ultimate Classic Rock and contemporaneous reporting, the rock band Kiss played its first concert there on January 30, 1973, and the Ramones also played early shows at the venue.

Thalia Spanish Theatre is at 41-17 Greenpoint Avenue, the Sunnyside branch of Queens Public Library at 43-06 Greenpoint Avenue, and Sunnyside Community Services at 43-31 39th Street. Sunnyside Shines is the business improvement district that carries the neighborhood's name. Sunnyside Reformed Church is at 48-03 Skillman Avenue, Mimar Sinan Mosque at 45-06 Skillman Avenue and Queen of Angels Church at 44-04 Skillman Avenue; The Episcopal Mission in Sunnyside is at 43-12 46th Street, the Sunnyside Muslim Center at 39-18 47th Avenue and Mosaic West Church at 46-01 43rd Avenue. The 45th St Composters and Community Garden, also known as Resistance is Fertile, is at 41-12 45th Street. The St. Pat's for All parade, founded in 2000 by Brendan Fay and Ellen Duncan, starts at 43rd Street and Skillman Avenue and its route continues into Woodside.

Four stations of the Flushing Line, served by the 7 train, stand inside the Sunnyside neighborhood tabulation area: 33 St-Rawson St, 40 St-Lowery St, 46 St-Bliss St and 52 St. MTA station records give all four an ADA value of 0. The nearest express stop is 61 St-Woodside, in Woodside, one stop beyond the neighborhood's easternmost station; the MTA record gives that station an ADA value of 1.

The "International Express" National Millennium Trail is described in its own designation as running from Sunnyside to Flushing, with Sunnyside as the named terminus.