When Time Out New York actually swallows its pride and crosses the Queensboro Bridge, it then proceeds to tell you which of our neighborhoods it deems worthy of mention:Why Queens?
If you think the question alone is derogatory, wait until you read the articles on the 3 communities they chose...
Jackson Heights
Of course, it’s hard to refuse a likely $300 rent reduction, but, in spite of all the people, something tells me I’d feel lonely out here. It’s a good 45-minute trip from parts of Manhattan, and an hour from my Carroll Gardens home in Brooklyn. Ultimately, I need to live in a neighborhood that my friends would visit, and I doubt they’d be willing to make the trek. I’ll be back for dinner, though.
Sunnyside
“It’s a strange little place.”
I scribble down what my found-on-Craigslist roommate Leslie says about Sunnyside as we get off the phone. “Strange,” huh? Strange in New York could mean anything from “quirky” to “bring your Mace and a large friend.” But TONY assured me I wouldn’t die on this assignment, so I grabbed my bag and hopped on the 7 train for a quick 20-minute ride into Queens.
Forest Hills
Having moved just one week earlier from the East Village to Williamsburg, the last thing I needed to do was move again, even for a weekend. And Queens? That borough had already caused the demise of one of my relationships, and besides P.S.1 and the Bohemian Beer Garden, it never felt to me like a place to find a vital New York experience.
8 comments:
It looks like TONY was listening to us last week when we asked their help in keeping the asshole hipster snobs out of the borough.
The Brooklyn / Manhattan hipster tone of the articles is overwhelming and repugnant, so hopefully their kind will stay away despite TONY's ultimate conclusion that living in Queens probably won't kill you.
Well, here is a tough question: What IS worse? the arrogant Brooklyn/Manhattan hipster (that seems to know a little about fighting for neigbhorhoods and wearing that legendary NYC attitude and creativitly on their sleeve) or the Baysider (the intellectual and cultural center of Queens) where they are very happy not to have been forced to travel to Manhattan in 30 years, or the early passive Astorian that quietly sat throught the brownout, quietly lined up for emergency supplies, and on cue, made the right noises on who to blame as quietly directed.
Your "New York" experience (which excludes any territory outside of Manhattan) is certainly limited, narrowminded and a bit too parochial for my man-of-the-world view of life. Queens is part of "Greater New York" not smaller Manhattan. If you're proud to live in an overpriced N.Y. County prison cell and are too insecure to move off "the island" , I would suggest a couple of years of therapy! I love those 20-30 year-olds who think that they've made it in the "big apple" with $50. left in their wallets after the rent bill's paid! It's all about what you keep, not what you spend!
Well, again, guys, we have to thank the leadership of our borough for this.
They may tell you how wonderful things are, but everyone knows the borough is going downhill.
Queens crap housing, political leadership out of touch, a cultural and intellectual leadership living in some dream word, an immigrant community that is here temporarily en route to a better life somewhere else.
Lets face it guys. We used to be number 2. We are now competing against a resurgent Bronx for bottom feeder. Go ahead, take a poll of New Yorkers. Queens is about as uncool as you can get. In their minds, we are number 2.
But..but..we have QUEENS WEST!
Queens is for regular people. Let the Hipster/ Yuppie scumbags think what they want as long as they mostly stay out. This works for me.
Correction: "Queens West" is really" Manhattan East"!
I like Queens being so invisable and unimportant, so to speak, that "bottom feeder". We're well protected in this sense, from yuppies and terrorists. We're off their radar. God bless us all! Nobody would think of attacking the Queens Botanical (weed patch) Gardens, for example.
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