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

I would choose Jackson Heights out of those -- best food, easy to get to the city (especially midtown), some really nice old buildings

I don't know. The part of Jackson Heights that seems to be where most people end up living is enough of a schlep from 74th st that you may as well live any number of places, though it's nice not to be too far. Personally, I'm happy to have ended up where I am in Woodside. Where the other neighborhoods are easy to get to but my own area has it's little charm.

I saw a place on 65th st and 38th ave. Didn't love that corner, so where Woodside had been number two last week, that small area bumped it down. I am only looking for within a 5 minutes walk of the subway and there are just so many more apartments in Jackson Heights that I had to extend my look out there.

You might want to extend that walk to 10 minutes. In Jackson heights a lot of the nice apartments are about an 8 to 10 minute walk from the 82nd street stop.
In sunnyside as well, there's nice apartments close but also nice ones about 10 minutes away. My walk is probably like 8 minutes but my apartment is nicer than when my walk was about 3 minutes.

7 minutes then! For some reason all the apartments people have been showing me are like 2 blocks from the subway.

has anyone else gone to the new Italian place on queens boulevard in ss? there was a fairly long wait to get in both times we went. and it's filled with white 30 somethings. times they are a changing etc

Now but I've been to Vesta a bunch. Glad to have it in the area.

Don't forget Woodside has the express 7 stop and LIRR. In any case, you can't write off Woodside based on one little area, since block by block it varies widely. It's mostly not very attractive.

I found the perfect place on Woodside Ave. by Doughboy park ( I think you live near there?) but then supposedly the girl decided not to move. I also saw the building appear on the bedbug registry, so maybe it's all for the best.

I live on Woodside Ave across the street from Doughboy Park, so you were either in my building or one of two right near it.

55-05

was your number

yes. that's my building. it doesn't have a bedbug epidemic. it's cleaner than most buildings I've seen and fairly well-maintained. Certain apts have mice, certain have roaches, we've fought both at times but haven't seen either in a few years. Pretty par for the course for NYC. If something opens up I'd recommend it. Generally nice people, nice to look out the window and see a park. Fairly close to 52nd st and 61st 7 trains, or in a pinch, M and R at Northern Blvd. Pretty good parking. etc. We walk to Astoria to go to Queens Kickshaw, we walk to Elmhurst for Thai food, to Jackson Heights for Nepali/Tibetan, Gola Kebab! Sammy's Halal!, to Sunnyside for Mangal Kebab.

I live across from Cooper Park right now, so I don't really want to give up seeing trees and walking my dog on grass.

I am hoping she changes her mind in the next 3 months which would be better for me anyway (this is to buy btw). I looked again at the registry and it only seems like there were a couple of incidences maybe 2-3 years ago.

Help me convince LauPo to move too.

I tried already. I don't think it's gonna happen.

She was all about moving to Sunset Park when I was looking there. For one day.

Trying to see if I can get ilxor curmudgeon to come out this way during his visit next weekend.

I live across from Cooper Park right now, so I don't really want to give up seeing trees and walking my dog on grass.

lol wth are you me? That's where I lived before I moved to Forest Hills (well, a block from Cooper Park on Metropolitan).

Anyway, Mumford at Forest Hills Tennis Stadium happened yesterday. Sort of curious how the stadium was as a venue, though not curious about how the show was.

The entrance and sign are pretty sweet looking

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-64lAMODatno/Uh1y2_6yBkI/AAAAAAAAD3c/icZGQwfVmMo/s1600/New+Stadium+Entrance.jpeg

er the sign is anyway

I have been directly at the north entrance of the park for 10 years now. I am making an offer on a place in JH on Saturday. I am super anxious about this whole co-op board process.

Oh hey, nice. I'm just about to submit my co-op application here in Forest Hills. The process is more a pain than anything else, as far as I can tell. There's just a lot of crap you have to put together, depending on the co-op. But doubt a building in Jackson Heights is going to be super strict about approving you as long as you have some money in the bank and some income.

Supposedly, most buildings in Sunnyside/Woodside/JH that I looked at, the co-op board won't approve if my current residence is not already listed/sold. I still have a mortgage on it. But I don't want to list it until I have somewhere to live.

Hmm, I think you kind of have to sell your place anyway, just to get a new mortgage (unless you are just buying all cash from the equity in your old place or whatever -- if you've owned by Cooper Park for 10 years, that seems possible!) -- I'm renting now, but that's my understsanding. Have you talked to a broker or lawyer at all about it? I can e-mail the name of our Queens RE lawyer, who's pretty good.

Sent you an e-mail.

Good news everyone, my building got its first bonafide hipster couple. Guy had extremely skinny jeans, girl had an arty tote bag and an anchor tattoo on her foot. Good coffee can't be far behind now!

Or they'll move to a shitty part if greenpoint in a few months.

yeah that thought crossed my mind -- "will they survive out here?"

I've known hipsters who've moved to Sunnyside (quick bike ride to greenpoint and Bushwick!) and not last a year!

it's hard to be in a place without support systems

would read
http://lareviewofbooks.org/review/outborough-destiny-jonathan-lethems-dissident-gardens

This sounds cool:
http://gothamist.com/2013/09/19/junk_car_drive-in_coming_flushing_m.php

I want to hear more about this Astoria hate. My broker keeps trying to push this gut renovated place at 38th St. and 29th Ave.? It was a bit of a hike to the train and I am only interested because I have never ever lived in a brand new place and am kind of OCD about my house being clean. JH is still my first choice (by default since Sunnyside has barely any apartments available).

I was just in Astoria today -- we went and hung out in Astoria Park a bit, which I thought was very nice, and then we ate greek food at Taverna Kyclades, which was amazing and a really good deal. Just having Kyclades in my neighborhood would be a pretty sweet amenity. Beyond that, I don't particularly love or hate the neighborhood. It doesn't have a lot of aesthetic charm and it's sort of a mish mash of things commercially, but there's a lot of good food. It doesn't have a hip vibe the way certain brooklyn neighborhoods do, it's much more of a mix of various immigrant community businesses and mostly straight-laced yuppie businesses.

Kyclades has the best tsatsiki, best saganaki and best grilled octopus I've ever eaten. Chicken and fish were also solid. Portions were ridiculous -- even the appetizer octopus was like a good-sized meal.

Never been, always intimidated by the wait.

We went a little before noon today and there was no wait. And they offer their lunch specials on Saturday, so it's a good time to go.

Good to know.

Not as popular/acclaimed, but we've had good meals at Agnanti, which has the benefit of being at the very end of Ditmars at the Park, a really nice location.

Eating lunch at non-brunch places at brunch times is often a good way to avoid waits imo.

ok I need to rag on queens for a minute, today I saw this fat lady and her fat mom coming into my building with two huge shopping bags of food from the OLIVE GARDEN. That's fucking queens. Some days I like FH and some days I'm like "how the hell did I wash up on this island."

there are parts of brooklyn with fat olive gardeny people, they are just further away

^^^ otm. there's an olive garden in east new york that i've driven past a few times!

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51KGF9EKE0L.jpg

queens is ruled by a fat olive garden person. what did you expect?

I used to love Taverna Kyclades when I lived over there. It sounds like their stock has risen since we moved (which, to be fair, was a long time ago) ... we considered them the more accessible neighborhoody fish place that we could always get into, compared to more expensive and crowded ones like Elias Corner near the beer garden

i just find it weird that anyone goes there in new york city when you're pretty much always in spitting distance of at least mediocre (i.e. better than OG) cheap italian food xp

dmr, Zagat gave them a super-high rating

wild. well they deserve it, it's a good place. I liked Agnanti too but only made it over there a couple times. it was a lot farther from our apartment.

the only olive garden I have ever been to is the one in chelsea and it was cause my gf wanted to fulfill her suburban guilty pleasure craving or whatever. I got the sense that it was the nice-night-out-with-the-family place for a lot of poor people in the city. it isn't even cheap and the salad and breadsticks are elementary school cafeteria style so it's not even a good guilty pleasure.

yeah the prices are pretty comparable to any red sauce italian place, so I really don't get it. Maybe there's something about branded restaurants for families -- when I was a kid I would get really excited about cheesecake factory, friday's, bennigan's, etc.

all you can eat is a pretty good selling point for fat people

I want to go to the Cheesecake Factory, after reading that big article in the New Yorker about their perfecting food processing/delivery. I always talk about wanting to go to these chain places but the one time I went to TGIF because I was in Delaware for a wedding and had no other options, it was totally the worst thing ever.