Flushing

English form of Vlissingen, a port in the Netherlands.

Flushing

Town in Genesee County, southeast Michigan; population (1990) 8,500. It is situated on the Flint River, 16 km/10 mi west of Flint. Industries include the production of dyes, flour milling, and the processing of dairy products. There are American Indian mounds nearby.

Flushing

Commercial and residential section of north Queens, New York. It is situated on Flushing Creek, which leads into Flushing Bay, an inlet of the East River. Flushing Meadows-Corona Park lies to the west. Since the 1970s Flushing has become a polyglot community, with one of the largest US Chinese and Korean concentrations. Retailing and banking have boomed in the area, which in addition to its growing population has easy access to New York's airports. The Queens Botanical Garden is here.

Originally the site of the Dutch town of Vlissingen in the 1640s, it became in the 1650s a centre for Quakers fleeing New England. The Bowne House (1661) is the oldest house surviving in Queens, and the Friends Meeting House dates from 1694. The first US nursery was established here in 1737, and Flushing was largely rural and agricultural until the 1930s. The Bronx-Whitestone Bridge, opened in 1939 for the World's Fair in Flushing Meadows, prompting rapid development of the area.