Man Made Lake

Newtown Creek

    At one time Newtown Creek was a beautiful site. Full of seafood, surrounded by wooded hills, the four-mile-long estuary was a popular swimming spot with the local Mespat tribe. Dutch explorers first surveyed the creek in 1613.

    America's first modern oil refinery opened on its banks in 1867, and before long it was home base for Standard Oil. Other industries moved in and the creek was widened to accommodate bigger barges. Over the last 15 decades, 17 to 30 million gallons of oil (Exxon Valdez was 10) have spilled into Newtown Creek, a water body that is essentially stagnant. Add copper contamination from the Phelps Dodge superfund site, runoff from unsewered industrial sites and waste transfer stations, and combined-sewer overflows of human waste. Many call Newtown Creek the most polluted waterbody in North America.

Flushing at Night

   Of all the disorienting ethnic neighborhoods in New York, Flushing gives me the best twilight-zone-foreign-country experience.

   Perhaps it's the way every inch of space is used for retail.  Or maybe it's the weird themed architecture of tall neon signs and unfashionable typefaces.  Unlike Manhattan's Chinatown, which physically resembles the typical building stock downtown, in Flushing the facades are often tiled metal or concrete, terribly weathered, that brings to mind the vast high-rise slums the British built in Kowloon. 

   

    Originally settled in 1645 by the Dutch West India Company, Flushing was, at one time, a Quaker haven.  Fast forward 350 years to 1990, when an old Irish neighborhood was giving way to a growing Asian community, then 36% of the population.  Today it's estimated to be 55% Asian, and, depending on your source, either the biggest or second biggest Chinatown in New York (and thus North America).  Flushing's Chinese population is primarily Taiwanese in contrast to Manhattan's mostly Cantonese and Fujianese Chinatown.  The terminus of the 7-train, a stop on the Long Island Rail Road, and a Queens bus hub, downtown Flushing is exploding with stinky fish markets, tricked out Civics, and pirated DVDs.  Worth a look.

Queens' Little Guyana

    A relatively obscure country sandwiched between Brazil and Venezuela, Guyana gained Indians, Africans, Portuguese and Chinese through slavery and indentured labor during the 19th century.  The modern Guyanan is some combination of one of the above.  Fittingly, in the restaurants that dot Liberty Avenue, Roti curry sandwiches (typical of nearby Trinidad & Tobago) share the menu with Chinese BBQ and Bengali sweets.

    The chicken curry was spicy and savory and the bread sopped up the juices nicely but, similar to my experience with Trini cuisine, I can't figure out how to eat the stuff without making a huge mess.  This is no small problem considering the fountain of class that I am.  Ethiopian food is the same way.  By the end of the meal I feel like a fucking slob.

    Physically speaking, Richmond Hill is not a very intriguing neighborhood.  This appears to be the case with much of Queens.  The residential architecture is awkward and often bordering on suburban, but the wealth of ethnic enclaves is unmatched anywhere in the world.  Many districts share space with 2 or 3 seemingly incompatible ethnicities: Greeks/Brazilians/Egyptians in Astoria, Bengalis/Columbians/Filipinos in Jackson Heights, Chinese/Korean/Pakistanis in Flushing.  Similarly, Richmond Hill is the Guyanan quarter of greater Jamaica, Queens, which is also home to large Arab and Carribean  populations.  A staff writer for Not For Tourists recently wrote, "If Brooklyn is the new Manhattan, is Queens the new Brooklyn?"

Astoria, Queens

    Astoria is big. It's so big that I've been there half a dozen times and I still can't figure it all out. Guidebooks will tell you it's NYC's token Greek neighborhood, which is true. But they don't tell you that a lot of them are ethnic Greeks from Cyprus and Albania. Furthermore, they don't tell you about the Brazilians, Ecuadorians, Egyptians, Moroccans and Lebanese.

    As Queens' northwestern most neighborhood, Astoria has great views of the Upper East Side. Several parks line its waterfront, but, like all neighborhoods in New York, the closer to the water, the more desolate and abandoned. Most of the buildings are from the early 20th century, making it younger than most of Brooklyn. The built environment is interesting but what really makes Astoria so wonderful is the demographics and the corresponding culinary options. So far I've tried Greek, Turkish-Argentinian, and Bosnian cuisine there. I even saw a Himalayan tea house that serves that salty yak-butter tea that Sherpas warm up on. But Egytian hooka lounges and Czech beer gardens? I'll pass.

Misc Queens

Scheduled date of departure: June 27th. Job, apartment, plane tickets: 'shit is all locked down. But it isn't strictly business. We've got love for the game, believe that. That's why we're having a bonified moving party / garage sale in early June. You can come on over, drink some fine wines, eat some fine cheeses, buy our fine shit and say goodnight to the finest homo sapiens to ever grace Columbia River Basalt.

More on that later. In the mean time I thought I'd lace 'yall with some photos from Long Island City and Flushing. You know, you shouldn't sleep on Queens. She may lack hip kids but coffee shops aren't everything. Everybody needs dim sum sometimes.