stayed at the Queens County Hotel, built in 1851 along Grand Avenue, on their way to the markets. The Maspeth Theater, the neighborhood's largest theater in the 1920s, was built in 1924 at Grand Avenue and 69th Street by Straus and Strausberg, with 1,161 seats. It was owned by three companies before closing in 1965. Notable performers included Judy Garland. There were also many other theaters in Maspeth in the 1920s. A former Maspeth supermarket, Wielback's Grocery—one of the oldest in the area—then became Griff's Hardware. In 2000, the building became Griff's Laundry, a laundromat that closed less than ten years later and was slated for demolition. The building was notable for a neon sign on its facade. At Clinton Hall, a 1920s-built venue that had interior balconies and a large chandelier, there is now a laboratory and industrial offices. It is named after a mansion built by Judge Joseph Sackett. Sackett had built a wood-framed mansion behind the hall; later, New York Governor DeWitt Clinton planned the Erie Canal. The lands of the Sackett-Clinton House, as the mansion was called, were turned into a park by 1910, and the mansion burned down in 1933. The Clinton Diner, at Maspeth and Maurice Avenues, was built in 1935 and is a truck stop that appeared in the movie Goodfellas, as well as in other movies. The Queens Head Tavern, nearby, was an American Revolutionary War-era tavern and was used as a stagecoach stop later on. Notable streets Fresh Pond Road goes south to Myrtle Avenue and was named after a former pond named "Fresh Pond". Flushing Avenue goes west to downtown Brooklyn. Grand Avenue used to be a winding road before being straightened. Maspeth Avenue is discontinuous in the area because of the Newtown Creek and because of the location of the former Maspeth tanks. Maspeth Plank Road, a no-longer-extant road made of planks of wood, went from Williamsburg to Newtown, and crossed the English Kills. Melvina Place, off Maspeth Avenue, is named after a small section of Maspeth, which was to the east of the approximate intersection of Maspeth Plank Road and Rust Street. North Hempstead Plank Road, present-day 57th Avenue, split off of Grand Avenue at Mazeau Street and extended to Corona; the road was named after North Hempstead, New York, now in Nassau County, which split from Queens in 1898. 57th Avenue has a lot of old houses