54-46, that's my number: the Queens thread

that's a hell of a blog, dan

Isn't the style we're complaining about from about 70 years later than the GX Matthews buildings? I don't think it's possible to overstate the affect that crappy Home Depot-level building supplies have had on the lower end of housing construction -- it is now possible to get all your cheap and ugly in one place, and looking exactly like everyone else's cheap and ugly. This accounts for probably all of the cheap unpainted pine door jambs and window-frames in the entire city, and all the boob-like light fixtures, and all the really fucking ugly bathroom vanities.

maybe part of bushwick that borders ridgewood?

I always thought that blog was more just general nimbyism (and sorta anti-immigrant/republican).

btw, renovated MOMI theaters and cafe very Kubrickian, but most of the programming is excellent. I will probably go every 4-6 weeks or so.

(still can't get used to AMMI as MOMI, I guess there was an official name change)

and obv I will be around for a few carefully selected Mets games.

Yeah, but in the beginning every post was about how people would tear down a beautiful house in flushing and replace it with a 12 story feders apartment complex and pave over the grass yard for parking.

This was also during the fights over the landmarking of Sunnyside Gardens.

i was serious, dan!

I was responding to iatee's comment about it's content.

(still can't get used to AMMI as MOMI, I guess there was an official name change)

I'm annoyed that there isn't a more popular queens-wide blog than the crapper - which I don't check often but def has moments of flat out racism. but I guess there's not a lot that LIC and queens village residents have in common.

plus despite everything I think infill is actually a great thing (in theory) and an ugly 10 story building is probably better than none at all.

tho I guess it makes sense that the only thing that works as a borough-wide interest is nimbyism

I think 'MMI' is the preferred new acronym

I read queens crap, but dude's position on immigration is off-putting, to say the least.

I think the historic garden coops in Jackson heights are the closest thing to desirable architecture in queens. My building looks very modest from the outside -- one of a row of 6 family 3 story brick buildings - but it was built in the twenties and is actually in great shape and very solidly constructed. Before I lived in a 4th floor walk up apartment building that was also older, nice construction - but for queens. I would love to live in one of the cute houses on ditmars blvd.

there are lots of cool historic buildings in the astoria village area, like the little flatiron building. I like the walk down that block.

oh also around the north-woodside astoria border there's this suburban rowhouse that looks almost frank gehry-esque, completely out of nowhere. it's completely random and I've always wanted to know if there was a story behind it. anyone seen this?

where exactly?

There's lots of pretty areas in Queens but many of them are further out or just too expensive. The really nice JH garden co-ops aren't exactly cheap, nor is Sunnyside Gardens. Parts of Forest Hills and Kew Gardens are gorgeous, but there's not as much to do.

it's either on 31st or 32nd avenue...I gtg but I'll try and find it on google maps later

I take it back, I love you Astoria:

http://newyork.grubstreet.com/2011/02/pachanga.html

Circumstances have been bringing me to Forest Hills and Kew Gardens a lot lately, and I have concluded that either would be a nice place to live were one to have a family. I particularly like Metropolitan Avenue around Forest Park. There is a less suburban-y part of Forest Hills, near Nick's Pizza and the nice Japanese food store around Ascan Avenue that I like as well.

How come no one wants to talk about Richmond Hill?

gah I think it's on a part of the map that google streetview doesn't cover. I swear this strange little house exists.

I've only been to richmond hill once or twice and never ate there...getting to anything that isn't near the astoria/flushing/queens boulevard subway lines is something we can only do on the weekends. living that far on the j/z seems like it would really suck but I guess it's still a step up from no subway land. dan you ate there didn't you?

forest park seemed like it was more forest than park, probably a nice place to go jogging but not much else?

Thanks for the food rec, Dan--that's right around the corner from my house.

I walked around Forest Park when I was doing jury duty and I was going down completely deserted trails and worrying about being assaulted.

But what about South Richmond Hill, home to a vibrant Guyanese and Trinidadian population and the place I am currently posting from?

Forest Park is great, I think it has the largest old growth forest in NYC? Meaning it's not invented like the other big parks but actual old trees.

They have a nice vintage carousel, but be careful hanging out there sitting on a bench with your girlfriend and not children, watching the carousel, because people will likely think you're planning to steal a child.

I've been to South Richmond Hill twice for dinner. First time we went to a place who's name I can't remember and it was great. They were really nice, the kind of place where they just give you a plate of stuff and then they say "you have to try this" and then the woman service you says "mom, can I go do my homework now?" and at the end you're like "how much was that?" and they just make up a number. Had doubles and some jerk chicken and a bit of goat and some delicious desert snack. Went back a few months later with a third person and EVERYTHING was closing and it was only like 8 or something. Really weird. Found some place that wasn't quite as good. I can't compare them to the Brooklyn places though. Been meaning to go back.

Other queens food adventures include Mumbai Xpress in Floral Park, which was OK. They make the kind of indian snack foods that you can't find elsewhere outside of the good places out in Jersey. Also, deep in flushing across the street from Southern Spice, which is a pretty highly regarded/agrued about indian option, is a Sri Lankan place that is one of the dirtiest places I've ever been to, but they had the dish where they take roti and spices and vegetables and meat and fry them all up together while chopping them up, I think it's called Kottu Roti, and it was totally awesome.

Only other Sri Lankan place I've been was at San Rasa on Staten Island, where they have an amazing sunday brunch.

hmm that last dish sounds pretty good, how deep in flushing are we talking?

20 minute walk from the 7 train. There's a lot of gems down there. The Sri Lankan place is called Bownie Restaurant, with Southern Spice across the street. Not too far from there is M+T, one of the more interesting Chinese places in NYC, from a northern region in china...they had a fried fish dish with peanuts and peppers that is the best thing ever:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3848975/mt.jpg

We walked from the Main St. stop once, but mostly drive.

sorry, always mixing up italic and image tags.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3848975/mt.jpg

That's fried fish. Time Out had written about it. We couldn't find it on the menu so we had to point at the review posted in the window. At the end of the meal I asked the waitress what it was called so I could find it in the menu next time. She said that there was an error in the menu and that it was listed as "fish stick soup". I said "that's not a soup." Hope they fix that!

20 mins isn't bad, don't think we've ever been to that part of east flushing. looks like 45th ave is the main commerce street? we've ended up in flushing a lot lately to target/bed bath/etc. furnish our new place.

http://grieve-smith.com/transportation/blog1.php/2011/02/06/envisioning-a-great-walking-boulevard

discuss!

We drive or take the R to the Queens Blvd for the mall and target. Actually more often we drive to the Target in College Point.

he doesn't mention the other alternative, which is Northern Blvd leads directly the Queensborough bridge and is a much more appropriate entrance then Queens Blvd in Sunnyside, which is flanked by small retail, food, several community colleges and high schools, etc.

when we were in woodside we'd just walk to the 65th st station to get to the mall, but now flushing seems more practical than transferring. plus that area is such a clusterfuck, not always in the mood for it.

yeah I like the article and am obviously pro-congestion pricing but that doesn't seem like a direct answer for this problem, triborough has fees and the area around there isn't quite a pedestrian paradise. I think traffic cameras / enforced speed limits + some greenery would be the right start.

How about a pedestrian bridge over the 7 train? Think of the views!

otm

I have had that exact thought many times! the queens high line. I imagine construction costs would be realllly hard to justify, is the thing.

does anyone remember the grind cafe? (qns blvd and 39th) i miss it...

i like aubergine. haven't tried cafe marlene yet.

it was gone before I moved here, but now that I currently live 2 blocks from there...would probably be there every other day. the sign on the wall is still up. where do you live RR?

I never went to the Grind but that's where our CSA pick-ups were going to be before it closed. I mostly read bad things about it on chowhound or the sunnyside yahoogroup or somewhere.

I was over there today looking at a commercial space. It's really crazy down there, basically when 90% of the printing industry fled manhattan, they either went to NJ, western LI or that part of sunnyside. I had never walked right in front of Soel, just seen the lines on weekend nights. Pretty hilarious.

such a strange place for a club, isn't it?

it's actually my boyfriend who lives here, on 41st street near skillman ave. i do like that the grind sign is still up.

i do remember once waiting ages for a square of pizza that my bf ordered. but still miss it.

are there any other good places in sunnyside cafe-wise, or are aubergine and cafe marlene it?

those plus la marjolaine (not technically a cafe but they have wifi...) and starbucks are the only things north of queens boulevard. south there's one cafe on greenpoint, I think it's called 'ave coffeehouse' now, it used to be something else. it seems pretty middle of the road. as far as queens goes that's a lot of options...woodside and jackson heights both only really have one + one starbucks and neither is great.

ave coffehouse was an Esparks. Weird chain...there was like 1 in Elmhurst, then one opened up on the site of an old Hallmark store in woodside near 59th st, and a month later 1 opened up on greenpoint ave, then a month later the first one changed their signed to "Cafescape" and the second to Ave Coffehouse. Looking online, the main one is in Glendale and they have 2 franchises, the one in elmhurst that's still there and one in Great Neck. There was one in Astoria as well. Bit of a mystery.

So after checking out that space instead of taking the 7 back I decided to walk and I've always wanted to take more pictures of the neighborhoods and I had my camera to take pix of the space so I figured I might as well and took all these shots

http://gallery.me.com/danselzer#100060

excuse the 1 tilt shit photo. I had forgotten my camera had that setting so I gave it a shot. I think it would be more effective with a different angle. Anyway, some nice overcast views of sunnyside, sunnyside looking over to LIC. The Phipps Garden Apartments which I've always obsessed about because it's deco sign and it has that Jackson Heights interior garden thing going on. Cool looking building but not all very nice. I have a friend who lives in there, found a 1 bedroom sublet for 900 dollars just a few years ago. Says it's one of those building that they won't bother fixing up nice because it's not a co-op and it's filled with rent-subsidized old people or something.

Anyway, across the street from that is Donato's, which is not very good and one day I hope to buy it and turn it into a Lucali's style quality pizza place then there will finally be good pizza in this part of queens and the location is so charming people will come from all over for it.

googled it and someone on chowhound says "According to the owner-manager in Woodside, he's independent and bought out Esparks to operate at this location." so presumably something similar happened. maybe they were just overambitious.

I will eat your pizza. that route in your pics is my jogging route, actually. it's the safest place to run around here.

I also like barnett ave...sorta hidden and mysterious

I mostly jog around the industrial parts of woodside...39th and 37th ave, broadway. There's all these printers and temples and small manufacturers. It's really fascinating. That is, the 2 times a year I jog.

yeah I take that route when I jog to astoria. it's interesting how many different languages you'll see on the signs.

it seriously astounds me that sapori d'ischia gets *any* customers with that location.

oh apparently the glendale esparks is right by the trader joe's, I think I've seen it.

Have you been to Sapor D'ischia? We went once for dinner, the food was pretty good. The atmosphere was hilarious. Supposedly they have good deals for lunch. Some fancy pasta on an industrial stretch of queens.

yeah we went twice. their dinner is a little out of our normal budget but it's def good. their personal-but-big lunch pizza is pretty cheap and worlds better than the rest of the pizza options.

actually had the vegetarian pizza at la flor recently and it was sorta california-style 'I'm basically eating a salad' but it was pretty decent!