From the Daily News:It's golden brown, light yet crispy, piled with whipped cream and strawberries - and primed for a comeback after 45 years.
The original Belgian waffle, arguably introduced to Americans at the 1964 World's Fair, could return to Flushing Meadows-Corona Park as soon as a vendor who claims to have matched the secret recipe lands a city permit.
"We have to do this," said Thomas DeGeest, a Belgian native who parks his Wafels & Dinges truck - "dinges" means "toppings" - throughout Manhattan.
DeGeest's next opportunity to request a cart permit at Flushing Meadows will be in October, said Betsy Smith, the city Parks Department's assistant commissioner for revenue and marketing.
If he applies then, he could be selling the gratifying grids in the park by February, Smith said.
46 comments:
Love it!
Great place to set up shop would be at the NYS Pavilion. Wadda say, Parks Department?
Fix up the pavilion and put it to use, or let it rot?
As much as i would hate seeing the pavilion used to whore out waffles and/or other goods, i'd rather see used as an open food court than not to see it at all.
Let people set up stalls inside, and use the rent generated to pay for repairs and maintenance. Like a beer garden without the beer!
What's the fiber content of a "Belgian" waffle?
If you're going to eat mush, you might as well chow down Aunt Jemima.
Mmmmmmmmmmmm... Waffles.
Belgian waffles! See, I told y'all that I can smell 'em but now the virtual thought is about to become real.
There is a kitchen in the NYS Pavilion.
Problem is if this guy setup shop in there the Unions would take everything he could earn in rent, maintenance and trash carting.
The unions killed most all the 1964 WF venders and the roller rink and concert operators in the 70's
Donald Trump wanted no part of it with all the strings attached between the unions, the city and parks.
I spoke to the engineer who built the theater addition. It would cost 40 million dollars to refirb the structure.
His exact quote was:
"Do you have $80 million dollars to go up there and look at Queens these days?"
I remember those 1964 Fair Belgian Villiage Waffles. They also had these whipped cream things in tubes with cake in this push up bottom. That vendor setup later opened up shop at "Great Eastern Mills" in Elmont (Now a Home Depot)
There was another place on Fulton st in Brooklyn in the 60s that sold square Belgian waffles Ice cream sandwiches as you exited.
They would flip a square of 3 flavor ice cream off a piece of paper
It was on Fulton across and not far from the Horn n Hardart automat (across the street).
A&S or Strauss store ?
Kevin from FNY may know
Aint gonna sell in that place - stinky carts full of middle eastern mystery meat or greasy latin american fare would be the vittles for that market.
excellent
Aint gonna sell in that place - stinky carts full of middle eastern mystery meat or greasy latin american fare would be the vittles for that market.
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I don't know. There are alot of American ( and I don't specifically mean white people) who are tired of halal and mexican taco stands in there neighborhoods who want a delicious pastry/cake like snack/desert.
White people love waffles, blacks people love waffles and asian people love cat on a stick.
White people love waffles, blacks people love waffles and asian people love cat on a stick
You funny guy.
The hallal mystery meat and taco trucks are what the market in that neck of the woods wants. They may be uninspected and unliscensed but hell, we donen need no stinkin badgish.
Speaking about the NYSP I just went down there to photograph the collapsing wall and old restaurant room.
The cops would not allow me into the parks lots (roadblocks) without Press, Park Employee or USTA “credentials”
I was looked at like a criminal and told park at City field @ $18 and keep your ticket receipt.
Dozens of police were sitting in idling patrol cars protecting USTA trailers, private, VIP lots press now taking up the WHOLE PARK yet not ONE was looking after the publics cars at City Field.
I complained I lived in this city all my life, this is a PUBLIC park and a PUBLIC parking lot “this is so wrong”
Cop shrugs shoulders and rolls his window back up. I was then was tailgated all the way to the LIE sign under the Van Wick.
What’s this the USTA now owns the whole park, parking and all vendor and press licensing from the LIE to the Railroad yard?
-Joe
Welcome to Blumturd City, Joe.
As tennis fans gather, we should be out there petitioning to save the NYS Pavilion. We could easily get tens of thousands of signatures.
Its criminal how this Beantown Hitler has the NYC PD protecting the rich and his corporate private interests like the USTA, Nike, Wilson, Kia with public taxpayer $$.
Bloomberg and his bitches in crime have pimped out Queens largest public park (apparently all of it this year)for private use.
Note:
A private rental car company is using one of the parking lots as a car port.
People bounce to and from the fancy hotels & restaurants in the city.
Its a constant rotation, the keys never leave the cars.
This USTA shit does NOTHING for the people that live in Queens.
I bet The catering company’s and Vendors are on the Bloombergs Manhattan sanctioned list. The regular cart people may have been kicked out as well
"I was looked at like a criminal and told park at City field @ $18 and keep your ticket receipt."
the2y always pull that bullshit during the iopen where are visiotrs of the queens museum of art and the ice skating suppose to park ?
joe there's freee parking where the hall of science/queens zoo is .
as for waffles not selling in the park you're an idiot
and yes joe is an atrocity for the hundreds and thousands of queens residents that patron the park everyone uis suppose to park by the hall of science queens zoo or the far ass walk by meadow lake now and guess what there isent enough parking . this is my public fucking park i pay the fucking taxes for it argh
Free parking where the hall of science/queens zoo is .
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Manned gate now since the Rocket Park restoration it cost $$. Also: It’s no longer the Hall of Science but a 3rd world babysitting service.
Anyway once in the park you CANT get by the CGP Ash stadium (unless your paying the $18 parking)
The turn you around the traffic circle to the back of the park and kick you out via perimeter under the Van Wyck.
You can then get on the LIE East or take College Point Blvd north through a field of moon crators to Roosevelt.
Not knowing any other shortcuts I just got on the LIE in disgust.
I wasnt driving through that willets point sh*t or leaving my classic 72 Vette 454 un-attended in the east side of bänē city bootdello.
Thats againt ALL classic car insurence policys let alone myself!!
This Mayor really has his shit down doesnt he.
--Middle class join the herd or GTF out !!
Waffles are great but slow down, think about it.
It like the German pretzels in Ridgewood and Bushwick till 1980.
My grandfather in his 70’s refused to stay home and do nothing. Sunday mornings he push a carriage over 2 miles to see his friend at Starr St Bakery. Grampa would bag and pack baby carriage full of hot bags of pretzels. Must have been 700 or so.
It was then up to the big church on Stockholm and Onderdonk and sell them after mass “Pretzellas ! Pretzellas !”
They were $1 a bag of 4. He'd sell out and be home in Ridgewood by 1 PM
Come 1986 the area changed and nobody was interested...The Starr St Pretzel factory had long closed
Now these guys sell these things called Churros (spelling).
-----Looks like a dog squeezed them out.
I see the same thing in Flushing Meadow Park in 2009
It also must be near impossible to get a permit
You know, there is a perfectly good elevated train that stops right nearby, as well as a commuter train, and several bus lines that pass reasonably close by. Unless you're lugging around huge amounts of equipment you don't even need to bring out your car.
Belgian waffles might be the greatest culinary treat on Earth, but this guy will fall flat on his face in Flushing Meadows unless he also sells churros! churros! churros!
Those guys,Hal and Al,they're everywhere!
You know, there is a perfectly good elevated train that stops right nearby, as well as a commuter train, and several bus lines that pass reasonably close by. Unless you're lugging around huge amounts of equipment you don't even need to bring out your car.
Has anyone told the US Open attendees this? Why are they the only ones who have access to the park by car? And not everyone is capable of taking the bus or train. I like to bring my grandmother there sometimes and she can't do stairs or walk very far.
Oddly enough, in an economy move because of budget cuts, the Hall of Science is closing for two weeks, starting Monday.
It's unfortunate that the Hall of Science is closed during the US Open. It could have tried to attract the fans with tennis-related science exhibits.
Also, don't blame Bloomy for the closing of the park. The stadium was built by Dinkins.
The stadium was built by Dinkins, but the park was closed by Bloomberg.
They supposedly closed the Hall for these two weeks because the period is the most sparsely attended there.
Not surprising, considering how the area is gridlocked, with all those Beemers and Jags stopped in the middle of the road, as the drivers try to convince cops that they should be parking closer.
"I like to bring my grandmother there..." Sterling character my young man! Bravo. I used to bring my elderly mother to the Astoria Park in her declining years. She loved to watch the boats go by.
BTW Parks is closing the FMCP Olympic Pool in October for 2 weeks of maintenence. Just like they did last year. Why couldn't they close it for repairs during the US Open when its hard for the swimmers to get there?.
Whats with the guy in the army navy store on jamaica ave off of woodhaven trying to charge me $5 more for a duffle bag in his store than what his website says it costs?
The pool like the hospitality tent of food and drink is used by upper class ticket holders and VIPs.
The locals are much happier using their bathroom showers or garden hoses for the rest of the summer.
The USTA cant have Queens Archie Bunkers mixing with its VIP tennis people and sponsor CEO's.
It would be just as insulting as asking them to ride the subway or any form of public mass transit.
Hampton Jitney has nonstops from both upper East and West sides 70's
CRAPPY: Has anyone told the US Open attendees this? [That FMCP is accessable by public transportation]
Well, the official site of the US Open reads: "We strongly recommend all US Open attendees utilize public transportation on all days during the Tournament."
I've not been to the US Open myself - I don't follow tennis - but friends of mine who have have all taken the train. Not a representative sample, no, but SOMEONE is getting the message.
CRAPPY: Why are they the only ones who have access to the park by car?
My understanding is that everyone has access by car, it's just that they have to pay to park. Why is that? The law of supply and demand. Parking is a finite resource. Its value increases during a large event like the US Open. Traditionally in this country we allocate resources on the basis of the ability to pay. Don't like that? Seems unfair to me, too. Let's have a revolution and establish a socialist paradise.
CRAPPY: I like to bring my grandmother there sometimes and she can't do stairs or walk very far.
Well then unless there's some pressing need for your grandmother to go to FMCP specifically, I would suggest that you and she avoid it for the few weeks that the US Open is going on (there are a good 49, 50 weeks out of the year when that's the case, many of them in the spring and summer). Kissena Park is nearby, is quite lovely (some would say lovlier than FMCP), isn't as crowded, and has a couple of small parking lots and access to onstreet parking. Also, there's a velodrome so you can take in the bike races, which I'm SURE you'd enjoy the hell out of.
Yes, I guess giving up our rights as taxpayers is the best advice.
The fountains in the park are only on this time of year. I guess my grandmother has no right to see them because she's not a tennis fan.
CRAPPER: Yes, I guess giving up our rights as taxpayers is the best advice.
As we've already established, you have every right to be in the park. You just don't have a right to park there for free, or almost free. I'm not sure why you think that you do, or should. It's not a right mentioned in the Magna Carta, or the Constitution, or the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. No court has ruled on it. This is not shocking - this is more or less how we organize our entire economy. People pay for goods and services, according to what the market will bear. If seeing the fountains is so important to your grandmother then you should probably do the right thing, suck it up, and pay the double sawski. If it's a real hardship take up a collection among your loyal readers - I'll pledge a dollar because I'm generous like that.
georgetheatheist: Sterling character my young man! Bravo.
I have it on pretty good authority, George, that Crappy is a girl.
First of all, I'd like to make it clear that Ridgewoodian and I have never seen each other naked, so I don't know how he can definitively say I am a woman. (I may have to gouge my eyes out after that, then I couldn't blog anymore.)
Second of all, "People pay for goods and services, according to what the market will bear" is a stupid argument when 50 weeks out of the year, parking at Flushing Meadows is free, no matter what is going on there. Then again, the fountains are off during those 50 weeks, and you seem to be ok with that, too.
Yes, as long as Queens remains "vibrant and diverse" nothing else matters.
Ridgewoodian is like some character out of Lord of the Rings, stirring up and bleching somewhere in the bowls of the earth frightening all the Hobbits until whatever it is goes back to sleep and starts the cycle over again.
Ridgewoodian you'll be real happy about the hippies slowly seeping in to your neighborhood fro mbushwick and williamsburg
welcome them with open arms
Interesting, Crappy, that your mind turns so quickly to nudity. You would be a lucky lady indeed to exhibit yourself starkers in front of me but I’m not here for dates, I wouldn’t be interested in someone too cheap to spend $18 to make their dear grandmother happy, and, honestly, your obsession with things scatological is a little weird even for me, and I have a very open mind.
Fifty weeks out of the year the US Open is NOT going on and there are seldom events at FMCP that attract tens of thousands of people. (Remember, the capacity of Arthur Ashe Stadium is over 23,000 and Louis Armstrong Stadium is another 10,000.) The only one I can think of offhand was the Billy Graham crusade a couple of years ago. Therefore there’s much, much less demand for parking during those 50 weeks and parking spots are much less valuable. Economics 101 will tell you that when there’s more supply than demand prices will go down and they’ll go up when there’s more demand than supply. This is capitalism. Now, unlike some, I don’t think that capitalism is an unalloyed good, and I’d like to see some resources allocated on a basis other than the ability to pay (health care for example, or access to higher education) because it would make society as a whole better if more people had access to them. Parking isn’t one of those things, though. (If it were up to me I’d charge at least a nominal fee during those 50 weeks to encourage those who can to use mass transit.)
I don’t know how much it costs to run the fountains at the Unisphere; I imagine it’s quite a bit, though. I can understand running them only during special events, when many, many people are going to see them. (They were going during the Billy Graham crusade.) They should probably run on holidays - say the Fourth of July. But it would probably be a waste to have them going all the time.
As for “vibrant and diverse,” I don’t know what that has to do with any of the preceding discussion. Is it the cliché that you object to or do you really want to live in a dead and bland city?
Maspethian--
I like to think of myself as a Balrog of Truth.
Anonymous--
My DAD was a hippie. I don't see any of his kind moving in. Maybe you mean the Goths, the punks, the hipsters, the faboo gays. Sure, we're getting a few of them. I have no problem with that; my rent hasn't gone up significantly and they haven't mugged me on the street. Not being an asshole, why should I want to keep them out?
Hey Ridgewoodian, just thought I'd post this to show the world that you are a genius in your own mind.
Now, part of the deal with having yet more parkland alienated from the city was that revenue from the U.S. Open and other events was supposed to be spent on fixing up Flushing Meadows. That is not happening. And any money that is paid goes into the general parks budget to pay for things like the High Line. So I say let's either tear down the damn stadium and put something useful there or rent it to someone who will pay their share of the burden - and make sure it will go back to the park that it benefits from. Let's also make sure the next Borough President pledges to fix up the park and also pledges to keep the fountains on for the year-round TAXPAYING RESIDENTS to enjoy.
And as for your father being a hippie, there's a huge fucking surprise.
But Einstein warns the best thing about blogs is also the most dangerous.
“Someone can say whatever they want to say and there's no way to validate that information and so you have to bear that in mind that the person giving you this information has a particular point of view and that the information they are presenting may or may not be supported by the facts,” she said.
---
Talking about the weeklies in Queens, eh?
Crapper - Nice video. Nothing to actually convince me that that's you (if you actually are one person and not just a disagreeable persona) but it did have fully professional production values. If you really are a male then what I wrote before goes double: Man the fuck up and bring your grandmother to the park, even if it costs you $20. A man who doesn't take his grandmother to the park when she wants to go because he doesn't want to pay $20 is no kind of man at all and is, in fact, a cunt.
As for that report, did you actually READ it? I suspect not. Allow me summarize: the USTA and the Parks department signed a lease agreement in 1993 that required the USTA to pay $2.25 million for roadway improvements, $8 million for park improvement, $400,000 anually as a base rent, plus 1% of the gross revenue above $25 million derived from the National Tennis Center. In 2005 the City issued an audit report, studying the calendar years 1996-2004. This is what they concluded: "The USTA generally adhered to the provisions of its lease agreement with the City and had an adequate system of internal controls over its revenue collection and reporting functions. In addition, the USTA paid the appropriate amount towards road and park improvements, maintained the required property and liability insurance, paid the required water and sewer charges, and paid its rent on time."
Now, the City did conclude that, over the course of nine years, "the USTA underreported its revenue to the City by $31,85,978. Consequently, the USTA owed the City $311,860 in additional percentage rent." The USTA didn't dispute a portion of this and wrote a check for $63,097 leaving $248,763 in dispute. What it came down to was a disagreement over how to interpert certain provisions of the lease. Honestly, I don't know who was really right or how it was resolved - I assume it's been resolved, since the report is almost four years old. In any case, the amount in question is relativly small, chump change for both the City and the USTA. It was a small enough difference that, under the terms of the lease, the City wasn't even entitled to impose fines on the USTA.
So, in short, according to the City the USTA actually HAS paid the $2.25 million for the roads and the $8 million for the park that it was required to under the terms of the lease. It also paid the vast majority of the rent due, with a small amount in dispute. I suppose you could complain that the rent isn't high enough, that it should be 5% or 10% or whatever but that's a different issue.
The road and park improvemet fees were clearly meant to be spent in and around FMCP and apparently they have been paid. Nothing in the report mentions where and how the rent money is to be spent. That, it seems, would be up to the Parks department. To me, it would make no sense to dedicate it all to only FMCP for all time. Putting it into a general Parks fund would allow the money to be spent on parks all over the city, wherever there might be a need, which is to the benefit of ALL New Yorkers.
So it would make so much sense to tear down the NTC. Let the city forgo a million, two million, three million dollars in rent every year, not to mention the economic activity generated by the US Open. Get rid of a number of world class tennis courts that are available for residents to use during most of the year for a relativly modest fee. Yeah, that's an excellent, excellent idea. What exactly would you put there?
As for running the Unisphere fountains every day - sure, it'd be nice but how much would that cost? We're not talking Bethesda Fountain or the fountain in Washington Square, which are small. The Unisphere is giant. Is that the best possible use of money?
As for the High Line I don't know what you have against it. It's a great, beautiful park - even when they're not putting on live sex shows in the Standard Hotel - and it'll be even better when they extend it. It was the product of community activism - a couple of guys worked for ten years to get it built; an example to everyone in this city. And it's a hell of a lot better than what was there before.
Well gee, if the money generated by the US Open went toward FMCP, the fountains could be turned on all the time, because they could rig them for solar power.
If my grandmother saw it would cost $20 to enter the park, she would refuse to go. She's old school Queens and not about to allow her grandchild to get ripped off.
"It was the product of community activism - a couple of guys worked for ten years to get it built; an example to everyone in this city."
The High Line was converted into a park because a bunch of celebrities wanted it and there is no maintenance money to keep it up. This is definitely an example to everyone in this city of piss poor planning by the Bloomberg administration who turned its backs on countless outer borough activists trying to get the same thing (for much less money).
For all the wasted money that the state and federal government spends, I wish some of it went towards restoring the New York State Pavilion and Towers :-/
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