is New York City dead?

I will probably never go to Brooklyn again in my life.

― chinavision!

Yeah I'm at a similar stage of life

tempted to post this on the queens thread instead but it follows up from this...had a great Queens weekend (except for some fussiness at times from the 5 year old) which involved going to Maspeth on saturday afternoon for a friend's art opening. There's a super cool art gallery called Mrs https://www.mrsgallery.com/ in the middle of residential Maspeth. Not anywhere near a train. We parked down the street and immediately found ourselves across from an amazing Polish market that had hot dishes, tons of in-house sausages and pickles and all kinds of products. There's also a few excellent peruvian spots so we picked up some ceviche for dinner. This polish market is an 11 minute drive from my place in Woodside.

And sunday got food from the AMAZING Bolivian Llama Party in sunnyside. Also just learned about a sunday only nexican restaurant that takes place in somebody's backyard a few blocks from my house.

So yeah, Queens isn't dead at least.

Sounds fun. I always wonder about little places like that (the gallery etc) that pop up in the middle of those residential queens areas that are kind of middle class and don't have tons of commercial space nearby, like will they survive? It's hard for me to imagine Maspeth/Glendale/Fresh Pond/Middle Village being "the next Ridgewood" because they are already not all that cheap and don't seem like they offer a lot of spaces for the kinds of businesses the ridgewick crowd would want.

we had a good queens weekend too!

we went to the queens theatre (next to the museum) to get the 4-year-old some culture, ie a lightly psychedelic fiberoptic-suited tortoise and the hare performance, then ran around the park for a while. the weekend flushing meadows volleyball and cookout scene was unaffected by the unseasonable weather. then we got Perfectly Fine Italian Food from a the Perfectly Fine Italian Place around the corner from us.

those polish markets are so good at steam table food, there's one by me (hetman deli) with unbelievably large and good cutlets and a pungent carrot salad that i eat by the pint.

bolivian llama party rules, i haven't been to the sunnyside one (which took over from another good bolivian spot) but the one that was in the columbus circle subway station was great.

i live half a block from fresh pond and the yupster stuff has made it as far as forest ave, two blocks east of here. there's one evil real estate developer who's made it his mission to bring the washed concrete and houseplant aesthetic to ridgewood and he's slowly winning.

plus, i mean, i'm here and i'm definitely a middle class boho dickhead.

I feel like, for a lot of people, the coronavirus / WFH has made the boroughs more distinct and cut off. I live in Brooklyn, and have been to Manhattan twice in the past two years. Once for a doctor's appointment, once to take my kid to the Natural History museum.

The gallery's been there for a while. They own the building and live upstairs, and make art there as well. I'm sure if they were just renting and expecting to make a living as a gallery in a neighborhood like that it wouldn't be so easy. It's very nice though and my friend Rose's show is fantastic in any case.

Anyway the reason none of those neighborhoods will ever be the net ridgewood is because they don't have subway access. That's always been key. And there's always been outliers. I don't know, I suppose if an art community can grow in Red Hook it can happen anywhere, but they had cheap spaces, and the waterfront vibe, for a long time.

There's actually tons of industrial space in woodside. When I moved here 15 years ago I thought it'd be great to get space and thought it'd be affordable but it wasn't...every HVAC, car repair, printer etc that wanted industrial space close to manhattan and on a bunch of highways knew this was a good spot and it was priced accordingly. But maybe due to pandemic or other forces...there's TONS of empty spaces, which I'm sure people will sit on forever. It sucks, walking by all these rent signs on big industrial spaces. Could be so much cool light industry here. Bring us an Industry City!

Of course there's that weird thing in sunnyside now where the evil guy from Uber started a chain of ghost kitchen buildings, which is a good idea.

Nice accounts, y'all! I was actually enjoying a sunny Queens Saturday the previous weekend - took the bus to Maspeth (by which means it's a very short jaunt from Bushwick), and hiked from there to Elmhurst, Corona and Jackson Heights, plus a sunset stop in Sunnyside. The actual premise was knocking incredibly minor buildings off my architecture to-do list, but it was really just an excuse to be out pounding the pavement and taking in the neighborhoods. Beautiful time all throughout, people out enjoying the weather, street market on Junction Boulevard thronging with activity, etc.

Dan, where'd you get the ceviche? That would be a selling point for my partner to join me next time going over there.

Mama Pio in Maspeth. Really nice little place. I wonder about the history of peruvian restaurants in NYC. It seems like there's dozens that are basically knock-offs of Pio Pio, who's main location in Jackson Heights is like a football field of families having feasts. I've gotten that same kind of peruvian ceviche at these places, with the leche de tigre and the sweet potato and big hominy and crunchy corn and onions and I really can't get enough of it. Plus the rotisserie chicken at these places is simply the best. I remember reading that Pio Pio marinated theirs in beer and tamarind. There's a place in sunnyside that used to be called Pio Riko and is now just Riko and it's fine but nowhere near as good as Pio Pio. This Mama Pio is maybe as good or better than Pio Pio.

My funny Pio Pio story is the first time we went I didnt know what to get and I ordered the Matador Combo thinking, well, that seems kinda expensive at 28 dollars but a combo seems like a good way to go. Then they brought out the food and I realized it was like for an entire family. A half chicken. A giant plate of tostones. Rice and Beans. Salchipapas (the french fries and hot dog combo), an avocado salad etc etc.

That sounds delicious, thank you dan!

Lol at Pio Pio ordering snafu.

I just found a picture of the matador combo. Imagine me at a small table with my then girlfriend, who ordered a fried cevice (jalea) and I get this:

https://media-cdn.tripadvisor.com/media/photo-s/10/21/30/95/matador-combo.jpg

And that's 42 dollars now.

When I went the first time about 15 years ago it was 28.

Cheap at any price.

This doesn't seem good in the long-term: "A Casino Atop Saks? Lobbyists Push for Manhattan Gambling Site"

The pio pio copy in Forest Hills/Kew Gardens was called Tu Casa and it was solid, at times even amazingly good although a bit inconsistent. We brought home a tub of their green sauce last time we went because we miss it so much.

yeah, had some leftover Mama Pio green sauce this morning on my leftover pupusa from El Comal in Jamiaca which my wife got because she was on Jury Duty. Sorry really should move this discussion back to the queens thread! Don't know if it's true with all Salvadoran tamales, but this place has tamales that make all mexican tamales taste so dry.

TS: C Town vs Key Food

Don’t think I mentioned that my Mi Tierra value card also works at Food Town, but maybe not SuperFresh.

Big fan of See Food

C town

the answer is food bazaar

The new mega tall residential blade runner skyscraper in downtown Bk is next door to Juniors on Flatbush, which looks like it hasn’t been renovated since 1982. A strange pair

Is everyone safe? [shootings (confirmed) + bomb (hearsay on my end) in 36th st subway Sunny P]

Ugh. Just read about, not affected myself.

Fuck, scary.

Heard someone who was on the train where the shooting happened on Brian Lehrer saying the shooting was on the N train before it pulled into the 36th St station. People were trying to get out of the car where the shooting was happening into another car while the train was in motion. There was also a fire on the car with a lot of smoke.

Al Jazeera just interviewing random people on the street who never went into the station, great journalism guys.

Some video of the train pulling into the station and people fleeing the train:

Very dramatic video from the incident as the subway arrived at 36th St Sunset Park in Brooklyn. #brooklyn #shooting #nyc pic.twitter.com/5cOdeYPIb1

— Kristoffer Kumm (@Kristofferkumm) April 12, 2022

Fucking hell

Everyone I know of is okay so far. My roommate does take that train around that time but she checked in already. I used to take it every day to get to work so this seems especially weird to me right now.

yikes that vid is hard to watch, with the wounded staggering out of the train

hoping everyone and their loved ones are safe

Safe here. It’s my good friend’s stop and he is ok too but I was panicked for a minute there

Same exact thing for me. Giving me a bit of a queasy feeling.

if only we hadn't defunded the police ;_;

looks like they arrested the suspect

Hiding out in …the east village?

"mumbling and saying shit about the FBI"
https://www.instagram.com/p/CcTQGp5p5mL/

Fuck, scary.

Like you would know

Do you feel abandoned calstars? The trolling was sort of funny but you seem deeply angry that I left the city. My wife is still there every day though. In fact she was a couple blocks from where the guy was caught when he was caught.

Isn’t there a suburbs thread you can post in something
You ran away and you don’t live here anymore so

drunk posting is always a bad idea if you're a mean drunk

is this part of the vibe shift?

! @NYCMayor⁩⁩’s job approval rating is at 29%. Many other findings pointing to widespread pessimism in NYC from this exclusive @NY1 ⁦@SienaResearch⁩ poll: https://t.co/DFTTohpXJF

— Emily Ngo (@emilyngo) June 7, 2022

adams is a disaster waiting to happen
― i cannot help if you made yourself not funny (forksclovetofu), Friday, February 11, 2022 10:52 PM (four months ago)

https://ouf.osc.state.ny.us/ouf/?wicket-crypt=4nEWwOiKc5w

^NY heads check and see if u have funds for grabs on here. More than one person in my phone book is on here and one buddy of mine has a 4-digit payment that they just claimed

FYI, nearly every state has a similar agency responsible for abandoned funds so those outside NY should also check with their state.

wow, it includes unused gift cards (wife has some) that's wild

Banks and insurers are obligated under NY law to hold unclaimed property (including $, uncashed checks, etc.) for certain periods of time, after which they are required to turn it over to the NYS Comptroller, which is required to attempt to notify payees/owners of the funds it holds, but after a period of time gets to keep the unclaimed funds.

I found my dad 15 bucks