From Daily News columnist Denis Hamill:The only time I usually leave Queens is for work, vacations, or to visit relatives.
Otherwise, everything I need in life is right here in these 178 square miles amid the 2.3 million residents.
There's nowhere in Manhattan that can compare with a power walk along Little Neck Bay when the sailboats catch the first breezes of spring and the fish are jumping and the cranes, mallards and gulls cry and caw, and where bicyclists, joggers, strollers and fishermen pass each other in the tireless parade of life.
When I need a place to sit in utter tranquility there's no place with a more Zen setting than Udall's cove in Little Neck.
I watch all the best foreign and indie flicks right at the Kew Gardens Cinema on Austin St. And eat in the Austin Ale House directly across the street or Dani's Italian restaurant on the corner, which also serves excellent pizza by the slice.
Get a truly working-class take on the "tweeding" - the gentrification - of Queens at QueensCrap.blogspot.com, which has kicked a little of the same out of me a few times. But this Web site delivers a loud, honest and irreverent point of view about life in Queens.
Wanna-be community activists can learn how to save their neighborhoods block by block by just trailing Frank Skala through Eastern Queens for a week. Warning: Bring comfortable shoes.
I love walking the boardwalk at Rockaway with the rumor of summer in the air.
Sure, there's a great big world that I like to visit outside of Queens.
But everything I'll ever need is right here.
Amen! Well, except for the tweeding definition... Gentrification is a result of tweeding, not the definition of it. But as far as I am concerned, anyone who exposes the lame bureaucracy of the Parks Department is entitled to make a faux pas now and then.
32 comments:
Hamill.
He sits on the bay. He goes to the movies. He eats pizza. He surfs the internet. He reads comic books.
Doesn't he do any work?
Get a truly working-class take on the "tweeding" - the gentrification - of Queens at QueensCrap.blogspot.com, which has kicked a little of the same out of me a few times. But this Web site delivers a loud, honest and irreverent point of view about life in Queens.
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Didn't some guy write an original article for this website (Queens Crap)about a congressman that then got ripped off by the Daily News? Just sayin'...
How come you can't click on the Crapper's website in the article and get here? Where's the link?
i faxed hamill the story of parks planting 19 trees across the ball/playground/park in june /2009,at P.S.159 ,Bayside.
he never responded or wrote a word in the daily news.
whistle blowing on Q/C got attention.
but CM Dan Halloran finally succeeded in explaining why the teens should have access to this play space.
the principal and custodian "claim" that they will unlock the gates(previously locked 24/7) this week 3/14/2010.
action speaks louder than words. enforcement ,enforcement.......
sadly the 19 trees ,as they grow, will destroy the ball playing for the local teens forever.
the teens will never experience full court basketball play, for only half/courts were constructed by the faux planners.
it appears to me that this space was meant to be for sitting (40 benches and gazebo) and for a scenic view from the porches of 205 street.
Working class my ass. Those are the machine and big union supporters.
Crappy is something new ... and evolving.
Hammel and ink and pulp is so yesterday.
You, dear blogger, well that is the future.....
George - the Denis Hamill lifestyle I envy, not the tower people and their realtors who accuse criticizers of being jealous of them.
"not the tower people and their realtors who accuse criticizers of being jealous of them."
QC, I don't understand this whole "tower people" thing.
I do understand resentment when a 6-8 story building gets plopped down in a low rise area, but those are not "towers".
As for the stuff down at the east river front..who cares? They are blocks and often miles away from those complaining about them.
Sure some are narcissistic etc. but again who cares, and it is better to have a reasonably well educated and affluent set of newcomers as opposed to what happened to the Bronx and parts of Brooklyn.
I am not trying to be a smartass here and I guess this is just human nature, but I don't get the resentment.
If you don't understand the concept of overdevelopment, Lino, then maybe you shouldn't bother visiting the blog at all. You can't put 30 story towers in a borough that has a subway and sewer system from the turn of last century and an electrical grid that falls apart.
Snake said: "Crappy is something new ... and evolving.
Hammel and ink and pulp is so yesterday.
You, dear blogger, well that is the future....."
Print media is STILL the preferred source of news - I, and the rest of the rational world, want news that is factual as well as good commentary. QC as well as other blogs discuss news stories and commentary in PRINT MEDIA. To devote your day to something that you love but brings in no money is not such a great idea either.
Newsforums and blogs are also littered with hate speech - usually it's one person posing as 15 and spending the day ranting and raving about something stupid - simply because he can. Freedom of speech is as ABUSED as all our other freedoms are. AND THIS BLOG IS NO EXCEPTION.
Queens Crap has been given attention by prominent PRINT MEDIA, Voice and now a prominent PRINT EDITOR. So please come down to earth here - and give rise to the occasion.
Do you REALLY believe HAMIL reads the comments in here? "Loud and irrevant" is great - why not ASPIRE to that description - NUTS and hateful is a different story.
Those of you who are regulars and care about QC - shut the fk up with the hateful comments already. Challenge yourselves by sticking with the posting.
I guess Babs hasn't read the comments on the Daily News' website lately.
"Queens Crap has been given attention by prominent PRINT MEDIA, Voice and now a prominent PRINT EDITOR."
And gets 5000 hits a day from everyday people like Babs.
Actually, I don't know if you guys are aware, but Miss Heather, me, Lost New York, Sheepshead Bites and a few others are working on a project that will expose how many times Babs' beloved "print media" steals stories from us without accrediting us as sources. Will post more info in the coming days.
:)
AWESOME! Start with the Daily News stealing Alan Gross' Ackerman stuff.
"To devote your day to something that you love but brings in no money is not such a great idea either."
I guess we should kill all the retired people with hobbies then.
Anonymous said: "And gets 5000 hits a day from everyday people like Babs."
Quality NOT quantity is what I'M talking about.
To concern ourselves only with nos. puts in the same league as the people we are united in complaining about!
Yes we should all "stifle" ourselves as Archie used to say.
Go jump in a lake, Babs.
An Anonymous genius said...
"If you don't understand the concept of overdevelopment, Lino, then maybe you shouldn't bother visiting the blog at all. You can't put 30 story towers in a borough that has a subway and sewer system from the turn of last century and an electrical grid that falls apart."
Brilliant! I guess that takes Manhattan with our hundred year+ infrastructure out of the picture.
Have you been here in oh, the last 80 years?
Most of the recent development out in Queens that qualifies as "towers" are in former factory areas that once had thousand of people working and heavy power demands.
As for other high rises, take a look at QBL from the Big Six on-out. When you get to Rego Pk and beyond you have true towers. No problem here? I guess not. Same for Bay terrace.
My guess is that much of the resentment voiced here stems from the fact that the newcomers have not bought into the "brick-single-family" and mostly conservative thinking here.
Take a look at that election yesterday...the republican got -7%- that is typical for all but a very few districts out there now.
The commenters here are fun to engage with, but they no longer represent the majority in their own borough.
Crappy said: "Actually, I don't know if you guys are aware, but Miss Heather, me, Lost New York, Sheepshead Bites and a few others are working on a project that will expose how many times Babs' beloved "print media" steals stories from us without accrediting us as sources. Will post more info in the coming days."
I'm happy to hear that AND of course happy to hear of your mention in the Daily News.
The concept and the format of your blog is EXCELLENT - but, the racist comments are NOT going to earn you any awards for journalism that's for SURE - and the perverted comment that was made recently was enough for me - as it would be for MOST. Your comments about the female politicians that you are angry with are nothing less than disturbing.
you get 5,000 hits a day! most are probably from the people you have said hateful things about in your comments under different aliases - it obviously empowers you that you can say these stupid things publicly and get away with it.
GROW UPPPPP!
You want people to respect your blog OTHER than your relatives - you going to have to CUT the weird stuff.
There are racist comments on just about every website in the world, including Curbed, Gothamist, Daily News, NY Post, NY Times and Queens Crap. Why don't you fly off the handle at the rest of them as well?
And I am not looking to get any journalism awards. That's not why I do this.
If you are accusing me of making up aliases and writing sick comments about female politicians, then you are, quite frankly, Looney Tunes.
And Lino, Manhattan's infrastructure has been upgraded over the decades to accommodate skyscrapers. Perhaps you missed our floods and power outages due to overdevelopment. Yes, the tower people's area was affected (See post about greening the borough posted today). There also are more Republicans in the towers than there are in my neck of the woods. They also avail themselves of services by illegal aliens like you do.
Crappy "If you are accusing me of making up aliases and writing sick comments about female politicians, then you are, quite frankly, Looney Tunes."
Well - someone certainly is and YOU as the moderator should be not ONLY aware but CONTROLLING certain intimidating comments -
"Because everyone's doing it - is a lame excuse Crappy, and I'm sure you know it. Newsday, NY Times, etc. DO discourage the more over the top comments - and you should to - for the INTEGRITY of journalism if for no other reason.
Compare yourself to the BEST not the worst.
And when I do that all I read are complaints about censorship. So let them say what they want to say. As long as they aren't threatening anyone. I also have told people on here a million times that if they find a comment offensive, to send me an e-mail and I will review and remove it if appropriate. No one ever does.
And the Daily News definitely does not check or moderate the content of their comments. Instead they have a filter for words like "shit".
Leave it to QC commenters to turn a post about something positive into something negative.
I believe that Babs and Lino are baiters...master baiters!!!
Hahhr, Hahhr. I chust luf dis zite. Dontchoo? Hahhr-Hahhr. Zo much exzitement.
"And Lino, Manhattan's infrastructure has been upgraded over the decades to accommodate skyscrapers."
Really? Everytime a water main, busts (which is often) they find hundred year+ construction, some of our mains are still wood. We had frequent brownouts here in my area till just 7-8 years ago due to ancient grid.
Most of those waterfront towers out there are built in areas designed for industry.
"Perhaps you missed our floods and power outages due to overdevelopment."
I didn't miss the one in Astoria, I was there. In that area it is mostly above ground utilities serving the same ancient shophouses. The problem that ConEd cited was simply greater loads due to air-conditioning and electronics.
"There also are more Republicans in the towers than there are in my neck of the woods."
Probably true, but you are still better off having an upscale influx than a stagnant and declining neighborhood. Those industrial areas are -never- coming back. If you want to see the alternative to "towers" take a walk down 49th ave to say, Van Dam and imagine what that area will be once the last of those factories close.
"They also avail themselves of services by illegal aliens like you do."
It is bad form to insult one's host but that is really low of you.
-All- of our 270+ employees have had to show relevant forms of ID. The majority are now citizens though some are resident status.
Businesses here in town went through a series of raids in the mid nineties. Thankfully no one was ever arrested at our places but we engaged an immigration lawyer who works with our people to clarify their status.
If you want illegals -look to your own scared "mom and pop" shops. You'll find a little of everything there: tax cheats, illegals,out of date products, faked extermination and if they have a grill faked hood cleaning reports.
But they do fly the flag.
Lino, you don't have massive blackouts and floods in Manhattan because your infrastructure has been upgraded. In Queens, there never is any significant upgrade of anything - until something catastrophic happens. This is due to the second class citizen mentality of City Hall.
And just because industry isn't coming back doesn't mean we need to put up towers. Queens is a middle and low scale borough. It would have made sense to encourage that type of housing, something which would have been truly affordable and more easily absorbed with the current services we have. Luxury condos with massive tax breaks do not help rental prices.
And, of course, the problem that Con Ed cited for the blackout was simply greater loads due to air-conditioning and electronics. Well if you have planned for a community of a certain amount, but in reality there are twice as many living there, then that is why there was a greater load on the system. Most of the mom-and-pop shops in my neighborhood are run by family members who were born here or immigrated here legally. Maybe the powers that be would like to see that change which is why they make sure they tax us to death and do everything they can to make us want to leave.
Water main breaks happen much more often in Queens than in Manhattan. It's just that when it happens in Manhattan, it makes the news.
Anonymous said: "Yes we should all "stifle" ourselves as Archie used to say."
I see too many people who abuse our freedoms - with freedom comes responsibility.
To berate someone or to consistently be offensive towards a person or a group of people is NOT freedom of speech - it is abuse. "I can belittle or degrade someone because I CAN" is NOT what our forefathers had in mind.
Bullies and wimps . . .
To berate someone or to consistently be offensive towards a person or a group of people is NOT freedom of speech - it is abuse. "I can belittle or degrade someone because I CAN" is NOT what our forefathers had in mind.
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Is it hard to breathe with your head up you butt?
you're a jerk . . .
Babs said...
you're a jerk . . .
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I guess you answered that question.
It's all about me me me me me me me me!
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