Whenever AM-NY does a Queens neighborhood profile, they always manage to include a photo of some ghastly crap:City Living: Astoria, Queens
And who can blame them? It's all over - it's inescapable!
Whenever AM-NY does a Queens neighborhood profile, they always manage to include a photo of some ghastly crap:
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Eat, eat, eat.
Scarf, scarf, scarf.
Fress, fress, fress.
Linguini here.
Mousaka there.
Babaganoush everywhere.
What is it with this constant need to describe where you can shovel grub down your maw?
Doesn't anyone eat at home anymore?
[Brrrp..Belch] Excuse me. Waiter, can we have the check?
Restaurants are just one
among many cash businesses.....nail salons,
small news stand/convenience stores etc.
When it's time for the owners of such establishments
to report their income to IRS,
it is well known
that a certain percentage is skimmed off
(a proper amount that wouldn't arouse suspicion
and deftly hidden somewhere) .
What do these restaurateurs do
with all that undeclared cash?
Now that's some food for thought.....isn't it ? !!!
They bribe politicians with it.
“Unlike many communities that have experienced a population influx, Astoria -- a longtime immigrant destination-has had no problem making room for its newest neighbors. Longtime resident Sylvia Weinberger, who bought her co-op in Astoria after World War II (for $3000!), has no complaints about changes in the neighborhood. "We have lots of Middle Easterners," Weinberger cheerfully declared. "And some Koreans, some Chinese-it's very mixed." “
Yes, isn’t it funny how they always manage to find a ‘typical’ resident in the upzoned areas that just ‘loves’ all the crowded trains, lack of parking, illegal conversions, absentee landlords, and increased dirt and noise? The fact that the word ‘urban deterioration’ is on everyone’s lips in the community seems to have been conveniently ignored, too.
Wow, lots of sullen men smoking hookahs makes for an attractive neighborhood, too.
And as to all the Koreans and Chinese that are moving in, well, I guess our little reporter really didn’t set foot into the community now, after all, did they? Bangladeshis, Mexicans, Tibetans, Brazilians, and yet more Mexicans I think is more the ticket now, isn’t it?
And what happened to the Italians, the largest ethic group in the community?
"What don't you like about the area? I don't like that it's harder to find quality produce-although some really good canned imports are available. I also don't love that some blocks look like strip malls."
Honey, strip malls don’t have Mexican music blaring on the sidewalk, bins of cheap clothes, stores full of gaudy furniture and 99 cent stores, oh God, those 99 cent stores.
Funny how the plummeting quality of life issues are left on the cutting room floor.
" Sohmer Piano Factory Take the long way to this Astoria landmark and weave through Astoria Village. Heading west on Astoria Blvd. from 21st Street you'll find Victorian houses and centuries-old churches on branching streets. Turn left on Vernon and you'll run into the Sohmer Piano Factory, a massive structure including a clock tower built in 1887 by Steinway's nemesis. 31-01 Vernon Blvd."
Sohmer as a tourist attraction? Nothing on Noguchi? Oh I get it, they called George Delis who must have just had lunch with the good Doctor who is scheming to do all kinds of neat things to Sohmer.
“Though brokers are aggressively marketing Astoria as the new hotspot for young professionals, the neighborhood has remained relatively affordable. Luxury waterfront condos give way to older buildings on shaded streets in Astoria Village,”
Aggressively marketing is an understatement as they all but harass the older residents to cash out. The article doesn't say is that the brokers seem to get nowhere once the people take a look at the overpriced, out of the way, cheaply built Queens crap that is going up on expressways, former swamps, brownfields next to power plants, noisy lots facing elevated trains, and, the one that really brings hoots of laughter by the locals, at the boro’s garden spot, Queens plaza.
Can anyone name a single luxury waterfront condo?
Older buildings in Astoria Village? They can’t mean those 150 homes that earn the leadership in the community’s scorn as they are torn down for immigrant barracks for the Manhattan service industry?
"Kids in their 20s need an affordable place to live, and that's what you'll find in Astoria -- for the time being."
What they fail to mention is that outside of a room in a basement or some subdivided railroad flat, where the rent is gouged, the young people are all but ignored in the community.
The politicians are fixated on seniors and immigrants, and the Greeks pretty much rent to each other for cafes that increasingly are oriented not to the community, but their Diaspora out on Long Island.
Except for Bohemian Hall, and a handful of places, there is not a single place or area that is especially welcome to hipsters – no stores – very few gathering places. Indeed, the locals actually scorn the kids as they mention that Astoria is a ‘family’ community.
Besides, middle class suburban kids complain a lot about quality of life issues – a real pain in the ass for someone who is milking the building as an absentee landlord. Immigrants are more docile and not so choosy.
Funny how these articles, like mushrooms after a rain, seem to spring up when ol Crappie reveals the truth behind the real estate blather:
http://queenscrap.blogspot.com/2007/09/astoria-condo-boom.html
George Delis....now there's a real piece of scatta !
The kiss of death on any community in Queens when it gets a write-up:
di-verse
Should be interesting when they do a checklist of descriptive words that people are looking for when they are in the market for places to move to
Does the word
di-verse
ever ever make the top ten? top 100?
Or is it a code word for 'immigrant slum,' a place with noisy filthy streets, transient population, crummy schools, absentee landlords, junk merchandise in stores?
After a generation of the same five words used over and over ad nausium shouldn't be time to invent new words to describe our communities?
Lots of Croatians, Albanians, and Bosnians in Astoria, too.
No one ever writes about them.
You mean those 150 'year old' homes they are destroying in 12th Street? That makes Astoria a laughing stock for sure.
Any word about that nursing home built on a cemetary last year? A neat thing to do.
" Astoria -- a longtime immigrant destination"
Says who? Except for the Greeks back in the 60s, Astoria had a stable population that typically spanned generations over a number of decades.
Only in the past 10 years has it become an extension of Elmhurst or Corona.
Actually it is the second cemetary. There was one rumored to be one under the Remson property, too.
The agressive marketing of Astoria is also being perpetuated by the city, a year and a half ago the entire subway viaduct from ditmars boulevard to 39 Av was given a fresh coat of green paint. I find this surprising since, according to my grandmother, it had not been painted in over fourty years. Its nice to see how the city does nothing for those who lived here for decades yet bends over backwards to doll up the town for the yuppies. BTW the house illustrated is that of Angelo Lemodetis, owner of numerous small buildings and businesses such as plumbing, laundromats and restaurants, thats his wife's miata parked outside.
newspaper's choosing to feature crappy buildings when doing pictorials of Queens is the same as a restaurant reviewer going to a restaurant and taking a photo of the bathroom or garbage dumpster to feature in their weekly newspaper column review.
Angelo Lemodetis, owner of numerous small buildings and businesses such as plumbing, laundromats and restaurants
Businesses known for cash which gives opportunities for playing around with taxes. Its easy these days not to pay your taxes because the IRS has cut back substanially on both enforcement and agents.
May explain why certain groups suddenly have tons of money. Perhaps this is the IRS contribution to tweeding.
"Its nice to see how the city does nothing for those who lived here for decades yet bends over backwards to doll up the town for the yuppies."
You got that right - 0 dollars for St Saviour park, $12 million for landscaping Hunters Point and $6 million for an East River Greenway that has nothing to do with Astoria. Money spent on encouraging developers.
Correction, money spent from the taxpayers who are not getting services and live in hollowed out communties.
Where are their elected representatives? Where is the press?
Thank heavens for Crappie!!
Community board 1 is a joke.
But the greeks and Vallone are teaming up.
Somethin's cookin.'
That is easy, cause there is money to be made in them thar hills.
Or more likely, serving two declining communities it makes sense to pool resources together.
Funny thing about the Geeks....oops....I mean Greeks.
I've never met one that wasn't rich.....
a lot of hidden cash......
summer homes in the isles and all.
(Although they're cheap as hell).
Maybe Vallone wants some of those Drachmas
for a future mayoral run h-m-m-m? !!!
Absentee landlords in Astoria? You're kidding? I really thought all of those 5 story 'villas' with cracking stucco and illegal carports spilling out onto the sidewalk so you can't walk past when there were once beautiful well kept gardens like my grandparents and parents and I have, and with no backyards when there were once kids playing and staying out of trouble and NOT spraying grafitti all over my house were owned by 3rd generation Astorians like me!
You're kidding me? Really?
Can you say tax-evading Bayside residents who have destroyed Astoria so their kids could drive around in Mercedes SVU's with vanity plates (of course) RACING DOWN MY BLOCK AT ALL HOURS OF THE DAY AND NIGHT and live in a free apartment owned by their parents, paid with CASH and not have to go out and find a job?
Diners, florists, laundromats, on and on. All cash-based businesses.
C'mon! This has been going on since the mid-70's here.
You figure it out.
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