From the Daily News:Nicole Steinberg grew weary of books about Queens that harped only on its ethnic diversity.
So the former Jackson Heights resident has compiled an anthology that reflects her experience growing up in the borough and being viewed as an outsider in New York City.
"It often felt like I didn't fit in," said Steinberg, 28, who regularly hung out in Bayside, Flushing, Forest Hills and Rego Park as a kid.
Queens, she added, is "sort of this in-between place where you're not really part of Long Island and you're not really from the rest of New York."
That identity crisis is key to "Forgotten Borough: Writers Come to Terms with Queens."
Released in February, the 206-page book covers race, class, industrial growth and other factors that define Queens, while describing the borough as "New York City's biggest underdog."
Never felt like the borough had an identity crisis (that's the same lame reasoning behind the Ed Koch Bridge) but I'm glad someone else out there is sick of the vibrant, diverse mantra. It's gotten really old.
14 comments:
Get off my lawn!
Speaking of diverse, Queens is the only borough that does not have a road named after Martin Luther King Jr.
Uh-oh, I think I just gave the pandering pols an idea. Oops.
I don't know. She sent me the MS a few months ago because she wanted a blurb, and the first couple stories harped on vibrant, diverse this and that, and I wound up demurring.
www.forgotten-ny.om
We all go through a transition to the way of Queens and the US which is to be a good citizen,maintain your home and adapt.
That tiring BS "vibrant, diverse" mantra is certainly as old as some of our borough's other ancient relics...Shulman, Stavisky...who keep on extolling it.
Thanks be that the ancient of all ancients...Nettie Mayerson finally bowed out!
Now give us a bunch of good stiff corn brooms and we can clean out the political clubhouse stable!
"Speaking of diverse"
I don't quite get the MLJ comment. MLJ was an American. Is your brain still in the Jim Crow era?
Isn't the topic here about a new book on Queens?
"Queens, she added, is "sort of this in-between place where you're not really part of Long Island and you're not really from the rest of New York."
Which is why I love living here!
Which is why I love living here!
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Same here!
Well said - I agree.
"It often felt like I didn't fit in," said Steinberg, 28
She's 28?
She's already dressing like a Yenta in her 40's!
No wonder she didn't fit in!
She's gonna get awfully lonely when she's in her 40's, living with just her cats!
People who live in Queens consider it an address, not a home, and not where they aspire to live. It is one huge airport arrivals lounge: It's functional, but no one is sentimental about it.
"People who live in Queens consider it an address, not a home, and not where they aspire to live. It is one huge airport arrivals lounge: It's functional, but no one is sentimental about it."
Please speak for yourself, Mr. Sweeney.
no website link to the author?
will copies of this book by an American author be purchased by the QBPL? go see how many books are written by people in other countries in the QBPL. That's so we know all about the plights of the downtrodden everywhere else but in Queens.
after experiencing the long traffic lines from Huntington L.I., Parsippany N.J. and other suburbs,i chose to reside in Bayside in 1970.
the social engineers in Queens forced me to challenge their progressive ideas and i "got involved" to protect MY way of life.
we Queens patriotic citizens have had it with the gangster government that surrounds our families.
to the new families moving in to the community, DON'T GIVE UP.
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