From Forest Hills 72:Austin Street is not a flea market. It's not Archer Avenue. If these landlords want to rent temporarily to relatives or associates or something, I guess that's legal, but I hope they know it looks like shit and won't do anything to help the other vacant stores get a tenant.
Instead of these street-fair like nameless temporary business, how about lowering the rent slightly and attract a store that's proven to be both good for the community and popular with its residents - like a Ripe, Bonfire Grill, Pampas Argentinas, Martha's, or Yogomonster?
Sample of things to come?
What makes you think Forest Hills is special and should have nice shops? Sorry, dude - it looks like 99 cent stores are in your future. Time to deal with it or else you'll be labeled an Archie Bunker and told to move to Ohio for not accepting this wonderful metamorphosis. I heard that Tommy Huang bought there, so what do you expect? Can't remember reading anything that called Forest Hills "vibrant" before. I bet that will soon change.
48 comments:
I think Altas Park is taking all of the new, trendy (=expensive) stores away from Forest Hills.
Wait till they roof over the Sunnyside Railyards and Queens Blvd starts to look like Steinway Street which is starting to look like Roosevelt Ave.
When Seaman Furniture closed on Steinway Street a few years back, the building owner leased the space to EL MUNDO DISCOUNT, a shopping experience that is worthy of tour bus organized by Teri to showcase tourism in Queens.
Piles of merchandise spilling into the sidewalk, hudge heaps of shoddy goods on tables and the floors.
Needless to say it is a mecca for the tweeded (a step up I dare say from the buying things sitting in the dirt covered with flies in the bazaar or plaza).
When mentioned on astorians.com the minders that seems to have seized control on that board calmly said 'the store seems crowded so it serves a need.'
The other merchants on the block don't need this crap - they cant shut their doors fast enough (for example, Damiani who was next door since the 1930s is 'retiring' something no one does for a profitable store)
Steinway merchants association, made up of people who dont live in the community (suprise!) responded with creativity and imagination.
They put up new banners.
Its said when you look at a newspaper from decades ago and see quality merchandise sold on Main Street, Jamaica Ave, Steinway Street, Queens Blvd and Austin Street.
You take a look at these places today.
Thank you machine. You are dragging down the borough of Queens, bringing in low class people and kicking out (by ignoring) anyone with a trace of intelligence or creativity.
All you bastards do is smile benignly everytime they insult the people of Queens by calling us Archie Bunkers.
I had a French restaurant open two years ago on Broadway in Astoria.
It closed. Lack of business.
Surprise.
A Mediterranean restaurant opened up. 'Mediterranean' is one of those evasive words, like 'Latin', that really doesnt describe something but has the hint of third world.
The hooka pipes were good sign of what was in store. The tables taking over the sidewalk another. Finally, a banner in Arabic lettering closed the deal.
What was once quaint bistro now is full of sullen men.
Makes a nice contrast to the former cute Edelweis Cafe a few blocks away that is now Otro Rollo bar where chicas are rentable by the dance at night and rows of day labors standing in front during the day.
Folks, this is the new Queens that the Tribune, Courier, Gazette, Chronicle and the Ledge always talk about.
Not pretty, eh?
In Manhattan or Brooklyn, a pizza place becomes a three star Italian restaurant.
In Queens, a Zabars becomes a bodega.
They'll tell you it all started with the Bukharian influx bringing a "lower class" element to this once snooty area.
But let's not fret!
A brief history of Forest Hills in a nutshell:
The bigoted Russell Sage Foundation excluded Jews from owning property in Forest Hills Gardens proper.
So when the 1939 Worlds Fair closed, property was bought up and developed by European Jews.
Now these Euro/Jews are complaining about the eastern steppe Jews that are moving in.
A little dose of what goes around comes around...a little poetic justice.
No doubt that when the next generation of Bukharians grows up and attains a higher social class
they'll look down upon any other "lower class" Jewish immigrants
moving into Forest Hills.
So FH will continue to have a Jewish identity but with a Jew on Jew prejudice.
It's all about our hidden class system in the USA.
Everyone of us that shops at .99 cent stores and walmart/target/kmart are to blame. Because we don't want to pay a couple extra dollars for quality merchandise, quality merchandise goes elsewhere and we are left with the crap!
wow. this thread reads like the transcript from a Klan rally.
Look, Woolworth and Kresege and Lamston always appealed to the working class people.
Never a problem, they were celebrated as mainstays on Main Streets across America.
El Mundo Discount (and its ilk) are a different level.
wow. this thread reads like the transcript from a Klan rally.
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someone was never in the south.
why are they a different level? because the shoppers in El Mundo Discount dont look like you?
please explain
right.. describing Mediterranean and latin as third world, complaining about Euro/Jews buying up property and deridig the presence of Arabic sullen old men with Hooka pipes is so much more sophisticated and poroper than southerners worrying about "coloreds" having rights
The Bukharians, I've read in a reliable source, lived isolated from all other Jews for 800 years and have their own customs and observences. So I'm not sure in what sense they are "Jews."
I do not live in an Archie Bunker house. I am King of Queens all the way!
Jacks in Manhattan is a great 99 cents store. If they opened one on Austin STreet I wouldn't complain, but you know what? My goddamn employer makes me work ridiculous hours so I never get to shop where I live. I do my shopping in Manhattan on my lunch break.
why are they a different level? because the shoppers in El Mundo Discount dont look like you?
please explain
He already did.
"Piles of merchandise spilling into the sidewalk, huge heaps of shoddy goods on tables and the floors."
Scroll up and you'll see it.
wow. this thread reads like the transcript from a Klan rally.
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you guys in government really have a problem with American citizens that think, or people that don't talk like you.
Pretty scary.
You know what, maybe you should not be in government if democracy makes you feel uncomfortable.
First off I am not "in government"
Second you have the right under free speech to spew all the racist hate you wish just as I have the right to point it out and object.
But talk about perpetuating the Archie Bunker stereotype.
But talk about perpetuating the Archie Bunker stereotype.
there you go! when someone from queens disagrees you wave the bloody shirt.
listen friend, let me do what someome should have done to you in high school.
let me take you by the front or your shirt and 'gently' back you up on some lockers.
now that i am two inchees from your face listen to what i have to say and listen good cause i am only goin to say it once
if you get frustrated with a balck person never never never call him a nigger
and if someone from Queens says something you dont like, dont ever call us Archie Bunkers.
kapish numnuts?
So when does point out that the machine made Queens a dump 'racist hate'?
Please explain.
What was once quaint bistro now is full of sullen men.
Makes a nice contrast to the former cute Edelweis Cafe a few blocks away that is now Otro Rollo bar where chicas are rentable by the dance at night and rows of day labors standing in front during the day.
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What is racist?
In today's Queens this is reality. Do you disagree?
If its not a pretty picture, well, then everyone can agree on something!
Hey everyone, the Nazi Party called, they want their handbook back.
People with no argument and no brains usually resort to bully tactics..
Way to go queens.. Way to represent!
I've got an idea. Why don't you guys go burn crosses in front of the businesses and developments you don't like? It would be fitting.
rename this blog Archie Bunkers Army.
There goes the neighborhood. One of the last nice walkable parts of Queens... I guess it will look like Myrtle Avenue in Ridgewood in a few years.
"People with no argument and no brains usually resort to bully tactics.."
What is there an argument about? The situation is what it is. And you didn't answer what was racist. People without a leg to stand on usually just blurt out "racism!" when they have no point at all.
People used to come here to make a better life for themselves. Now they bring their slum with them from back home.
Most of the commenters on this blog routinely make racially insensitive statements.
If you find that "is what it is" then you are the present day embodiment of the Archie Bunker character and give Queens a bad name
when i called out a commenter as such they replied with a ridiculous role play - likely because no logical reply existed.
You should be ashamed at yourself for not recognizing and voicing opposition to this type of hateful rhetoric that routinely fills this space.
Stay anonymous you racist pigs!
I challenge any of you to associate your name and address with these racially insensitive comments.
Go hide behind your anonymous white sheets you cowards.
@ CntrySigns - i should spend more $ for "quality merchandise" on austin street? i guess i'm not in the right stores. everything i see there is made in china like everything else everywhere else.
I guess we're just supposed to walk around in denial about what is going on around us. Pretend we don't see it. That's exactly what the tweeders would like us to do. Sorry, that shit don't fly no more.
Is it not true that the former cute Edelweis Cafe is now Otro Rollo bar where chicas are rentable by the dance at night and rows of day labors stand in front during the day? This statement hasn't been refuted yet. This is what we're waiting with bated breath to hear the answer to.
Racists see and define people by the color of their skin and their cultural and physical differences and are threatened by that.
People who are inclusive and do not participate in racial stereotyping do not partake in those thoughts or language. Simple as that.
People here complain mainly about other people's behavior, not the color of their skin.
Describing peoples behavior by the color of their skin is racial discrimination at its worst.
One need only read the posts in this thread to see that occurring routinely without check.
Who did that?
those commenters who complain about racism are insecure babies. everyone is racist.
Usually the ones complaining the loudest are the most frequent practitioners of it.
"Piles of merchandise spilling into the sidewalk, huge heaps of shoddy goods on tables and the floors."
Kind of like your ancestors selling pickles, fruit and cheap clothes on the lower east side when they first arrived.
Right, and the Lower East Side was considered a slum. Thanks for proving the point that was made.
Interesting to see Crapper defending his ignorant, bigoted lackeys on this blog. Keep sinking further and further fellas.
Can't answer my question, eh?
When was Steinway Street or Myrtle Avenue high-end? I remember them 15 years ago - Steinway had way more junk stores back then and Myrtle is the same now as it was then.
Wasn't there a Mets store on Steinway and a movie theater?
Hitler's "Mein Kampf" and Joe Crowley's clubhouse manual may have a lot more in common than one might wish to imagine.
Both the Nazi Party and Democratic Dictatorship of Queens aim at manipulating an extremely ignorant public into the blind acceptance of BAD GOVERNMENT!
Not that many of the oddball/deadhead candidates we see the Republican Party offering are any better as worthy opponents to their Democratic Party rivals.
Make sure to bring your brains into the voting booth(if you've got any) or you'll be taken in by the likes of either an "Adolph" or a "Joe".
Democracy requires the participation of an aware and enlightened citizenry.
You meat heads out there can toss your knee-jerk, tiresome (yawn)
Archie analogies in the trash, unless it's the best that you dorks are able to muster.
A reminder...
in the end it was Archie Bunker's ersatz liberal/hippie son in law
(the "meat head")who took a powder and abandoned his wife and son in that classic TV series.
And it was Archie
(your so called racist)who turned out to be the real stand up guy helping to care for his daughter and grandson.
So, F.U. !!!
camel parking coming to austin street this fall
Camel parking ?....nah!
These people are goat f-----s!
They like holding onto the horns
making it a whole lot easier.
Bonfire Grill is a nuisance to residents on Austin Street. The street noise is bad enough, but the drunks hanging out, the horrible saxophone player, and the open windows make for a really unpleasant quality of life. So please don't go touting the Bonfire Grill as an asset to the community...when they don't give a crap about its residents. Calls to 311 don't seem to do any good, and the manager at the Bonfire Grill's response to asking him to close his doors was "everyone on this street is doing it."
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