Less than a half-mile from where the No. 7 train stops on the corner of Main Street and Roosevelt Avenue is Bowne Street, on which stands the home of Quaker leader John Bowne. It is the oldest building in Queens and the second oldest in New York City's five boroughs. In 1662, Bowne was arrested by Stuyvesant and was tried in Holland for holding Quaker meetings in his home. He was ultimately exonerated.

Bowne Street is also home to the Bowne Street Community Church, which holds masses in English and Taiwanese Hokkien. On the next block, at Parsons Boulevard, you come to the Temple Gates of Prayer Synagogue, which is celebrating its 100th year. Directly across the street is the Sikh Center of Flushing.

An elder presides over services at the Sikh Center. PHOTO: Michael Yeh

On one recent day, Mahinder Gujral greeted visitors at the door. Gujral came to New York a decade ago and earned a degree in education from Teachers College, Columbia University. He insists that even the most casual observer join some of the congregants for a meal in the center's basement kitchen.

"Don't worry that you are being offered special treatment," he says. "We ask everyone to eat with us. Food is very important." When one of the visitors remarks that it seems like Sikhism is a religion for Jewish mothers, Gujral looks puzzled for a moment. Then he laughs and tells a story about one of his professors at Columbia, who described herself as a "typical Jewish mother," and who would feed Gujral when he looked hungry, which, as a graduate student, was most of the time.

Having arrived in Queens this spring, An elder (Sikhs have no priests) in the gurdwara (Sikh temple) named Giani Sukhdev Singh Daler speaks no English. Despite his recent arrival, the proximity of mosques, synagogues and churches did not initially faze him. Another elder explained, with Gujral translating, that the Sikh religion is based on love and tolerance, so they have had no problems with the neighbors.

The Pure Presbyterian Ny Church, built in 1987, has a large Korean congregation. PHOTO: Michael Yeh

Apart from the occasional graffiti, and some resistance to the Hindu parades when they first started 25 years ago, there has been little conflict between religious groups in Flushing, Hanson says. But with such a diversity of belief, has come some proselytizing. Hanson says that missionaries from the Mormon Church, Korean Christian churches, and from St. George's Church, an Episcopal parish on 38th Avenue are all active in the area.

A few doors down from the Sikh Center is the Masjid Gazrati Abu Bakr mosque, spiritual home to 1,000 worshippers. According to the assistant Imam Ahmad Wais Afzali, more than 90 percent of the congregants are from Afghanistan, though the mosque also attracts Muslims from Pakistan, Bosnia, Africa and the Middle East. Afzali is from Afghanistan himself, but he came to New York with his family when he was eight and speaks English without an accent.

Most of the Afghanis arrived recently, and they see the mosque as a sanctuary in a country that is far more hectic than the one they fled, Afzali says. Many came to the United States to flee war at home and to have the opportunity to educate themselves and their children and to build businesses in New York.

Afzali says he and his congregants "love" the diversity on Bowne Street. Asked about the long history of war in the name of religion, Afzali defers to the director of the center, Kabir Yaquiba, who puts the blame elsewhere. "The problem is not religion, it's the politicians," he says. "Religious people want to solve problems, but the politicians know that once the problem is solved, they are out of business," he says.

John Bowne, who refused to doff his cap to Gov. Stuyvesant, would almost certainly agree.